Speaker 1: Part one of Lady into Fox. This is a LibriVox recording.
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Speaker 1: by Tony Addison. Lady into Fox by David Garnet. Wonderful
Speaker 1: or supernatural events are not so uncommon. Rather, they are
Speaker 1: irregular in their incidents. Thus there may be not one
Speaker 1: marble to speak of in a century, and then often
Speaker 1: en up comes a plentiful crop of them. Monsters of
Speaker 1: all sorts swarm suddenly upon the earth from its plays
Speaker 1: in the sky, eclipses frightened nature, meteors fall in rain,
Speaker 1: while mermaids and sirens beguile, and sea serpents engulp every
Speaker 1: passing ship, and terrible cataclysms beset humanity. But the strange
Speaker 1: event which I shall hear relate came alone, unsupported, without companions,
Speaker 1: into a hostile world, and for that very reason claim
Speaker 1: little of the general attention of mankind. For the sudden
Speaker 1: changing of Missus Tebrick into a vixen is an established
Speaker 1: fact for which we may attempt to account for as
Speaker 1: we will. Certainly it is in the explanation of the fact,
Speaker 1: and the reconciling of it with our general notions, that
Speaker 1: we shall find most difficulty, and not in accepting but
Speaker 1: true a story which is so fully proved, and that
Speaker 1: not by one witness, but by a dozen, all respectable,
Speaker 1: and with no possibility of collusion between them. But here
Speaker 1: I will confine myself to an exact narrative of the
Speaker 1: event and all that followed on it. Yet I would
Speaker 1: not dissuade any of my readers from attempting an explanation
Speaker 1: of this seeming miracle, because up to that none has
Speaker 1: been found which is entirely satisfactory. What adds to the difficulty,
Speaker 1: to my mind, is that the metamorphosis occurred when missus
Speaker 1: Tebrick was a full grown woman, and that it happened suddenly,
Speaker 1: in so short a space of time. The sprouting of
Speaker 1: a tale, the gradual extension of hair or over the body,
Speaker 1: the slow change of the whole anatomy by a process
Speaker 1: of growth. Though it would have been monstrous, it would
Speaker 1: not have been so difficult to reconcile to our ordinary conceptions,
Speaker 1: particularly had it happened in a young child. But here
Speaker 1: we have something very different. A grown lady is chained
Speaker 1: straightway into a fox. There is no explaining that a
Speaker 1: way by any natural philosophy. The materialism of our age
Speaker 1: will not help us here. It is indeed a miracle,
Speaker 1: something from outside our world altogether, an event which we
Speaker 1: would willingly accept if we were to meet it, invested
Speaker 1: with the authority of divine revelation in the scriptures, but
Speaker 1: which we are not prepared to encounter almost in our time,
Speaker 1: happening in Oxfordshire amongst our neighbors. The only things which
Speaker 1: go any way towards an explanation of it are but
Speaker 1: guess work. And I give them more because I would
Speaker 1: not conceal anything than because I think they are of
Speaker 1: any work. Missus Debrigg's maiden name was certainly Fox, and
Speaker 1: it is possible that such a miracle happening before the
Speaker 1: family may have gained their name as a soubriquet. On
Speaker 1: that account. They were an ancient family and have had
Speaker 1: their seat at Tangley Hall time out of mind. It
Speaker 1: is also true that there was a half tame fox
Speaker 1: once upon a time, chained up at Tangley Hall in
Speaker 1: the inner Yard, and I have heard many speculative wise
Speaker 1: acres in the public houses turn that to great account,
Speaker 1: though they could not but admit that there was never
Speaker 1: one there in miss Sylvia's time. At first I was
Speaker 1: inclined to think that Sylvia Fox, having once hunted when
Speaker 1: she was a child of ten, and having been blooded,
Speaker 1: might furnish more of an explanation. It seemed she took
Speaker 1: great fright or disgusted at it, and vomited after it
Speaker 1: was done. But now I do not see that it
Speaker 1: has much bearing on the miracle itself, even though we
Speaker 1: know that after that she always spoke of the poor
Speaker 1: foxes when a hunt was stirring, and never rode to
Speaker 1: hounds till after her marriage, when her husband persuaded her
Speaker 1: to it. She was married in the year eighteen seventy
Speaker 1: nine to mister Richard de Brigg after a short courtship,
Speaker 1: and went to live after their honeymoon at Rylands near Stokoe,
Speaker 1: Oxon one point, indeed, I have not been able to ascertain,
Speaker 1: and that is how they first became acquainted. Tangley Hall
Speaker 1: is over thirty miles from Stoco and is extremely remote. Indeed,
Speaker 1: to this day there is no proper road to it,
Speaker 1: which is all the more more remarkable, as it is
Speaker 1: the principal and indeed the only manor house for several
Speaker 1: miles round. Whether it was from a chance meeting on
Speaker 1: the roads, or less romantic, but more probable by mister
Speaker 1: Tubrick becoming acquainted with her uncle, a minor cannon at Oxford,
Speaker 1: and then being invited by him to visit Tangleyhame, it
Speaker 1: is impossible to say, but however they became acquainted. The
Speaker 1: marriage was a very happy one. The bride was in
Speaker 1: her twenty third year. She was small, with remarkably small
Speaker 1: hands and feet. It is perhaps worth noting that there
Speaker 1: was nothing at all foxy or vixenish in her appearance.
Speaker 1: On the contrary, she was a more than ordinarily beautiful
Speaker 1: and agreeable woman. Her eyes were of a clear hazel,
Speaker 1: but exceptionally brilliant, her hair dark with a shade of
Speaker 1: red in it, her skin brownish, with a few dark
Speaker 1: freckles and little moles. In manner, she was reserved almost
Speaker 1: to shyness, but perfectly self possessed and perfectly well bred.
Speaker 1: She had been strictly brought up by a woman of
Speaker 1: excellent principles and considerable attainments, who died a year or
Speaker 1: so before the marriage, and owing to the circumstance that
Speaker 1: her mother had been dead many years, and her father
Speaker 1: bedridden and not altogether rational for a little while before
Speaker 1: his death. They had few visitors but her uncle. He
Speaker 1: often stopped with them a month or two at a stretch,
Speaker 1: particularly in winter, as he was fond of shooting snipe,
Speaker 1: which are plunktiful in the valley there. That she did
Speaker 1: not grow up a country Heyden is to be explained
Speaker 1: by the strictness of her governess and the influence of
Speaker 1: her uncle. But perhaps a living in so wild a
Speaker 1: place gave her some disposition to wildness, even in spite
Speaker 1: of her religious upbringing. Her old nurse said Miss Sylvia
Speaker 1: was always a little wild at heart, though if this
Speaker 1: was true, it was never seen by anyone else except
Speaker 1: her husband. On one of the first days of the
Speaker 1: year eighteen eighty, in the early afternoon, husband and wife
Speaker 1: went for a walk in the cops on the little
Speaker 1: hill above Ryland's. They were still at this time like
Speaker 1: lovers in their behavior, and were always together. While they
Speaker 1: were walking, they heard the hounds, and later the huntsman's
Speaker 1: horn in the distance. Mister to Brick had persuaded her
Speaker 1: to hunt on boxing dead, but with great difficulty, and
Speaker 1: she had not enjoyed it, though of hacking, she was
Speaker 1: fond enough hearing the hunt, Mister to Brick quickened his
Speaker 1: pace so as to reach the edge of the cops,
Speaker 1: where they might get a good view of the hounds
Speaker 1: if they came that way. His wife hung back, and he,
Speaker 1: holding her hand, began almost to drag her. Before they
Speaker 1: gained the edge of the cops. She suddenly snatched her
Speaker 1: hand away from his very violently, and cried out, so
Speaker 1: that he instantly turned his head where his wife had
Speaker 1: been a moment before, was a small fox of a
Speaker 1: buried bright dread. It looked at him very beseechingly, advanced
Speaker 1: towards him a pace or two, and he saw at
Speaker 1: once that his wife was looking at him from the
Speaker 1: animal's eyes. You may well think if he were aghast,
Speaker 1: and so maybe was his lady at finding herself in
Speaker 1: that shape. So they did nothing for nearly half an
Speaker 1: hour but stare at each other, he bewildered, she asking
Speaker 1: him with her eyes as if indeed she spoke to him,
Speaker 1: what am I now become? Have pity on me, husband,
Speaker 1: Have pity on me, for I am your wife. So
Speaker 1: that with his gazing on her, and knowing her well
Speaker 1: even in such a shape, yet asking himself, but ever
Speaker 1: in mind, can it be she am? I? Not dreaming?
Speaker 1: And her beseeching and hastily fawning on him, and seeming
Speaker 1: to tell him that it was she. Indeed, they came
Speaker 1: at last together, and he took her in his arms.
Speaker 1: She lay very close to him, nestling under his coat,
Speaker 1: and fell to licking his face, but never taking her
Speaker 1: eyes from his. The husband, all this while kept turning
Speaker 1: the thing in his head and gazing on her, But
Speaker 1: he could make no sense of what had happened, but
Speaker 1: only comforted himself with the hope that this was but
Speaker 1: a momentary change, and that presently she would turn back
Speaker 1: again into the white that was one flesh with him.
Speaker 1: One fancy that came to him, because he was so
Speaker 1: much more like a lover than a husband, was that
Speaker 1: it was his fault, and this because if anything dreadful happened,
Speaker 1: he could never blame her but himself for it. So
Speaker 1: they passed a good while till at last the tears
Speaker 1: welled up in the poor fox's eyes, and she began weeping,
Speaker 1: but quite in silence, and she trembled too, as if
Speaker 1: she were in a fever. At this he could not
Speaker 1: contain his own tears, but sat down on the ground
Speaker 1: and sobbed for a great while, but between his sobs
Speaker 1: kissing her quite as if she had been a woman,
Speaker 1: and not caring in his grief that he was kissing
Speaker 1: a fox on the muzzle. They sat thus till it
Speaker 1: was getting near dusk, when he recollected himself, and the
Speaker 1: next thing was that he must somehow hide her and
Speaker 1: then bring her home. He waited till it was quite
Speaker 1: dark that he might the better bring her into her
Speaker 1: own house without being seen, and buttoned her inside his topcoat,
Speaker 1: nake even in his passion, tearing open his waistcoat and
Speaker 1: his shirt, that she might lie the closer to his heart.
Speaker 1: For when we are overcome with the greatest sorrow, we
Speaker 1: act not like men or women, but like children, whose
Speaker 1: comfort in all their troubles is to press themselves against
Speaker 1: their mother's breast, or, if she be not there, to
Speaker 1: hold each other tight in one another's arms. When it
Speaker 1: was dark, he brought her in with infinite precautions, yet
Speaker 1: not without the dog stunting her utter, which nothing could
Speaker 1: moderate their clamort. Having got her into the house. The
Speaker 1: next thing he thought of was to hide her from
Speaker 1: the servants. He carried her to the bedroom in his arms,
Speaker 1: and then went downstairs again. Mister tu Brick had three
Speaker 1: servants living in the house, the cook, the parlor maid,
Speaker 1: and an old woman who had been his wife's nurse.
Speaker 1: Besides these woman, there was a groom or a gardener,
Speaker 1: whichever you choose to call him, who was a single man,
Speaker 1: and so lived out a lodging with a laboring family
Speaker 1: about half a mile awb Mister Brick, going downstairs, pitched
Speaker 1: upon the parlor maid. Janet says he missuster Brick and
Speaker 1: I have had some bad news, and missuster Brick was
Speaker 1: called away instantly to London and left this afternoon, and
Speaker 1: I am staying tonight to put our affairs in order.
Speaker 1: We are shutting up the house, and I must give
Speaker 1: you and missus Brandt a month's wages and ask you
Speaker 1: to leave tomorrow morning at seven o'clock. We shall probably
Speaker 1: go away to the continent, and I do not know
Speaker 1: when we shall come back. Please tell the others, and
Speaker 1: now get me my tea and bring it into my
Speaker 1: study on a tray. Janet said nothing, for she was
Speaker 1: a shy girl, particularly before gentlemen. But when she entered
Speaker 1: the kitchen, mister to Brick heard a sudden burst of
Speaker 1: conversation with many exclamations from the cook. When she came
Speaker 1: back with his teeth, mister Brick said, I shall not
Speaker 1: require you upstairs, pack your own things, and tell James
Speaker 1: to have the wagonete ready for you by seven o'clock
Speaker 1: tomorrow morning to take you to the station. I am
Speaker 1: busy now, but I will see you again before you go.
Speaker 1: When she had gone, mister to Brick took the tray upstairs.
Speaker 1: For the first moment he thought the room was empty
Speaker 1: and his vixen got away, for he could see no
Speaker 1: sign of for anywhere. But after a moment he saw
Speaker 1: something stirring in a corner of the room, and then
Speaker 1: behold she came forth, dragging her dressing gown into which
Speaker 1: she had somehow struggled. This must surely have been a
Speaker 1: comical sight. But poor mister Tubrick was altogether too distressed
Speaker 1: then or at any time afterwards, to divert himself at
Speaker 1: such ludicrous scenes. He only called to her softly, Sylvia, Sylvia,
Speaker 1: what do you do there? And then in a moment
Speaker 1: saw for himself what she would be at, and began
Speaker 1: once more to blame himself heartily, because he had not
Speaker 1: guessed that his wife would not like to go naked,
Speaker 1: notwithstanding the shape she was in. Nothing would satisfy him
Speaker 1: then till he had clothed her suitably, bringing her dresses
Speaker 1: from the wardrobe for her to choose, but as might
Speaker 1: have been expected, they were too big for her nap.
Speaker 1: But at last he picked out a little dressing jacket
Speaker 1: that she was fond of wearing sometimes in the mornings.
Speaker 1: It was made of a flowered silk, trimmed with lace,
Speaker 1: and the sleeve short enough to sit very well on
Speaker 1: her neck. While he tied the ribbons, his poor lady
Speaker 1: thanked him with gentle looks, and not without some modesty
Speaker 1: and confusion. He propped her up in an armchair with
Speaker 1: some cushions, and they took tea together, she very delicately
Speaker 1: drinking from a saucer and taking bread and butter from
Speaker 1: his hands. All this showed him also he thought that
Speaker 1: his wife was still herself. There was so little wildness
Speaker 1: in her demeanor, and so much delicacy and decency, especially
Speaker 1: in her not wishing to run naked, that he was
Speaker 1: very much comforted, and began to fancy they could be
Speaker 1: happy enough if they could escape the world and live
Speaker 1: always alone. From this too sanguine dream, he was aroused
Speaker 1: by hearing the gardener speaking to the dogs, trying to
Speaker 1: quiet them. For ever since he had come in with
Speaker 1: his vixen, they had been whining, barking, and growling, and
Speaker 1: all as he knew, because there was a fox within
Speaker 1: doors and they would kill it. He started up now,
Speaker 1: calling to the gardener that he would come down to
Speaker 1: the dogs himself to quiet them, and bade the man
Speaker 1: go indoors again and leave it to him. All this
Speaker 1: he said in a dry, compelling kind of voice, which
Speaker 1: made the fellow do as he was bid, though it
Speaker 1: was against his will, for he was curious. Mister Tubrick
Speaker 1: went downstairs, and taking his gun from the rack, loaded
Speaker 1: it and went out into the yard. Now there were
Speaker 1: two dogs, one a handsome Irish setter that was his
Speaker 1: wife's dog. She had brought it with her from Tangley
Speaker 1: Hall on our marriage. The other was an old fox
Speaker 1: turrier called Nully that he had had ten years or more.
Speaker 1: When he came out into the yard, both dogs salute
Speaker 1: to him by barking and whining twice as much as
Speaker 1: they did before, the setter jumping up and down at
Speaker 1: the end of his chain in a frenzy, and Nelly shivering,
Speaker 1: wagging her tail and looking first at her master and
Speaker 1: then at the house door, where she could smile the fox.
Speaker 1: Right enough, there was a bright moon so that mister
Speaker 1: to Brick could see the dogs as clearly as could be. First,
Speaker 1: he shot his wife's seta dead, and then looked about
Speaker 1: him for Nellie to give her the other barrel, but
Speaker 1: he could see her nowhere. The bitch was clean gone till.
Speaker 1: Looking to see how she had broken her chain, he
Speaker 1: found her lying hid in the back of her kennel,
Speaker 1: but that trick did not save herb for mister to Brick,
Speaker 1: after trying to pull her out by her chain and
Speaker 1: finding it useless, she would not come, thrust the muzzle
Speaker 1: of his gun into the kennel, pressed it into her body,
Speaker 1: and so shut her awards striking a match. He looked
Speaker 1: in the turt to make certain she was dead. Then
Speaker 1: leaving the dogs as they were chained up, mister t
Speaker 1: Brick went indoors again and found the gardener, who had
Speaker 1: not yet gone home, gave him a month's wages in
Speaker 1: lieu of notice, and told him he had a job
Speaker 1: for him yet to bury the two dogs, and that
Speaker 1: he should do it that same night. But by all
Speaker 1: this going on with so much strangeness and authority on
Speaker 1: his part, as it seemed to them, the servants were
Speaker 1: much troubled. Hearing the shots. While he was out in
Speaker 1: the yard, his wife's old nurse or nanny, ran up
Speaker 1: to the bedroom, though she had no business there, and
Speaker 1: so opening the door, saw the poor fox, dressed in
Speaker 1: my lady's little jacket, lying back in the cushions, and
Speaker 1: in such a reverie of woe that she heard nothing.
Speaker 1: Old Nanny, though she was not expecting to find a
Speaker 1: mistress there, having been told that she was gone that
Speaker 1: afternoon to London, knew her instantly and cried out, oh,
Speaker 1: my poor precious, oh poor miss Sylvia, what dreadful change
Speaker 1: is this. Then, seeing her mistress start and look at her,
Speaker 1: she cried out, but never fear, my darling, it will
Speaker 1: all come right. Your old nanny knows you it will
Speaker 1: all come right in the end. But though she said this,
Speaker 1: she did not care to look again, and kept her
Speaker 1: eyes turned away, so as not to meet the foxy
Speaker 1: slut ones of her mistress, for that was too much
Speaker 1: for her. So she hurried out soon fearing to be
Speaker 1: found there by mister de Brigg, and who knows, perhaps
Speaker 1: shot like the dogs, for knowing the secret, mister de
Speaker 1: brig had all this time gone about paying off his
Speaker 1: servants and shooting his dogs as if he were in
Speaker 1: a dream. Now he fortified himself with two or three
Speaker 1: glasses of strong whisky and went to bed, taking his
Speaker 1: vixen into his arms, where he slept soundly. Whether she
Speaker 1: did or not is more than I or anybody else
Speaker 1: can say. And of Part one, Part two of Lady
Speaker 1: into Fox by David Garnet. This libribox recording is in
Speaker 1: the public domain. Recording by Tony Addison. In the morning,
Speaker 1: when he woke up, they had the place to themselves,
Speaker 1: for on his instructions, the servants had all left, first
Speaker 1: thing Janet and the cook to Oxford, where they would
Speaker 1: try and find new places, and Nanny going back to
Speaker 1: the cottage near Tangley where her son lived, who was
Speaker 1: the pigment that So with that morning there began what
Speaker 1: was now to be their ordinary life together. He would
Speaker 1: get up when it was broad Dad, and first thing,
Speaker 1: light the fire downstairs and cook the breakfast, then brush
Speaker 1: his wife, sponge her with a damp sponge, then brush
Speaker 1: her again, in all this using scent very freely to
Speaker 1: hide somewhat her rank odor. When she was dressed, he
Speaker 1: carried her downstairs and they had their breakfast together, she
Speaker 1: sitting up to table with him, drinking her saucer of
Speaker 1: tea and taking her food from his fingers, or at
Speaker 1: any rate, being fed by him. She was still fond
Speaker 1: of the same food that she had been used to
Speaker 1: before her transformation, A lightly boiled egg or slice of ham,
Speaker 1: a piece of buttered toast, or two with a little
Speaker 1: quints and apple. Jan While I am on the subject
Speaker 1: of her food, I should say that reading in the Encyclopedia,
Speaker 1: he found that foxes on the continent are inordinately fond
Speaker 1: of grapes, and that during the autumn season they abandon
Speaker 1: their ordinary diet for them, and then grow exceedingly fat
Speaker 1: and lose their offensive odor. This appetite for grapes is
Speaker 1: so well confirmed by Esop and by passages in the scriptures,
Speaker 1: that it is strange mister Tebrick should not have known
Speaker 1: it After reading this account, he wrote to London for
Speaker 1: a basket of grapes to be posted to him twice
Speaker 1: a week, and was rejoiced to find that the account
Speaker 1: in the encyclopedia was true. In the moment. Most important
Speaker 1: of these particulars, his vixen relished them exceedingly and seemed
Speaker 1: never to tire of them, so that he increased his order,
Speaker 1: first from one pound to three pounds, and afterwards to five.
Speaker 1: Her odor abated so much by this means that he
Speaker 1: came not to notice it at all, except sometimes in
Speaker 1: the mornings before her to alect. What helped most to
Speaker 1: make living with her bearable for him was that she
Speaker 1: understood him perfectly, yes, every word he said, and though
Speaker 1: she was dumb, she expressed herself very fluently by looks
Speaker 1: and signs, though never by the voice. Thus he frequently
Speaker 1: conversed with her, telling her all his thoughts and hiding
Speaker 1: nothing from her, and this the more readily because he
Speaker 1: was very quick to catch her meaning and her answers.
Speaker 1: Posse pus, he would say to her, for calling her
Speaker 1: that had been a habit with him, always sweet puss.
Speaker 1: Some men would pity me living alone here with you,
Speaker 1: after what has happened. But I would not change places
Speaker 1: while you were living with any man for the whole world.
Speaker 1: Though you are a fox, I would rather live with
Speaker 1: you than any woman. I swear I would, and that
Speaker 1: too if you were changed to anything. But then, catching
Speaker 1: her grave love, he would say, do you think I
Speaker 1: jest on these things, my dear? I do not. I
Speaker 1: swear to you, my darling, that all my life I
Speaker 1: will be true to you, will be faithful, will respect
Speaker 1: and reverence you, who are my wife. And I will
Speaker 1: do that not because of any hope that God in
Speaker 1: his mercy will seek but to restore your shape, but
Speaker 1: solely because I love you. However you may be changed,
Speaker 1: my love is not. Then anyone seeing them would have
Speaker 1: sworn that they were lovers. So passionately did each look
Speaker 1: on the other. Often he would swear to her that
Speaker 1: the devil might have power to work some miracles, but
Speaker 1: that he would find it beyond him to change his
Speaker 1: love for her. These a passionate speeches, however, they might
Speaker 1: have struck his wife in an ordinary web, and now
Speaker 1: seemed to be her chief comfort. She would come to him,
Speaker 1: put her pour in his hand, and look at him
Speaker 1: with sparkling eyes shining with joy and gratitude, would pant
Speaker 1: with eagerness, jump at him and lick his face. Now
Speaker 1: he had many little things which busied him in the house,
Speaker 1: getting his meals, setting the room straight, making the bed,
Speaker 1: and so forth. When he was doing this housework, it
Speaker 1: was comical to watch his vixen. Often she was, as
Speaker 1: it were, beside herself with vexation and distress to see
Speaker 1: him in his clumsy way doing what she could have
Speaker 1: done so much better had she been able. Then forgetful
Speaker 1: of the decency under decorum which she had at first
Speaker 1: imposed upon herself, never to run upon all fours, she
Speaker 1: followed him everywhere, and if he did one thing wrong,
Speaker 1: she stopped him and showed him the way of it.
Speaker 1: When he had forgot the hour for his meal, she
Speaker 1: would come and tug his sleeve and tell him, as
Speaker 1: if she spoke, husband, are we to have no luncheon
Speaker 1: to day? This womanliness in her never failed to delight him,
Speaker 1: for it showed she was still his wife, buried as
Speaker 1: it were, in the carcass of a beast, but with
Speaker 1: a woman's soul. This encouraged him so much that he
Speaker 1: debated with himself whether he should not read aloud to her,
Speaker 1: as he often not done formerly. At last, since he
Speaker 1: could find no reason against it, he went to the
Speaker 1: shelf and fetched down a volume of the history of
Speaker 1: Clarissa Harlowe, which he had begun to read aloud to
Speaker 1: her a few weeks before. He opened the volume where
Speaker 1: he had left up with Lovelace's letter, after he had
Speaker 1: spent the night waiting fruitlessly in the copse. Good God,
Speaker 1: what is now to become of me? My feet been
Speaker 1: numbed by midnight wanderings through the heaviest dews that ever fell,
Speaker 1: my wig and my linen dripping with the hoar wroth
Speaker 1: dissolving on them day but just breaking a while he read,
Speaker 1: he was conscious of holding her attention. Then, after a
Speaker 1: few pages, the story claimed all his so that he
Speaker 1: read on for about half an hour without looking at her.
Speaker 1: When he did so, he saw that she was not
Speaker 1: listening to him, but was watching something with strange eagerness.
Speaker 1: Such a fixed intent look was on her face that
Speaker 1: he was alarmed and sought the cause of it. Presently
Speaker 1: he found that her gaze was fixed on the movements
Speaker 1: of her pet, dub, which was in its cage hanging
Speaker 1: in the window. He spoke to her, but she seemed displeased,
Speaker 1: so he laid Clarissa Harlowe aside. Nor did he ever
Speaker 1: repeat the experiment of reading to her. Yet that same evening,
Speaker 1: as he happened to be looking through his writing table
Speaker 1: drawer with Puss beside him looking over his elbow, she
Speaker 1: spied a pack of cards, and then he was forced
Speaker 1: to pick them out to please her, then draw them
Speaker 1: from their case. At last, trying first one thing then another,
Speaker 1: he found that what she was after was to play
Speaker 1: pquet with him. They had some difficulty at first in
Speaker 1: contriving for her to hold her cards and then to
Speaker 1: play them, but this was at last overcome by his
Speaker 1: stacking them for her on a sloping board, after which
Speaker 1: she could flip them out very neatly with her claws,
Speaker 1: as she wanted to play them. When they had overcome
Speaker 1: this trouble, they played three games, and most heartily she
Speaker 1: seemed to enjoy them. Moreover, she won all three of them.
Speaker 1: After this they often played a quiet game of peace together,
Speaker 1: and cribbage too. I should say that in marking the
Speaker 1: points at cribbage on the board he always moved her
Speaker 1: pegs for her as well. As his own, for she
Speaker 1: could not handle them or set them in the holes.
Speaker 1: The weather, which had been damp and misty with frequent
Speaker 1: downpours of rain, improved very much in the following week, and,
Speaker 1: as often happens in January, there were several days with
Speaker 1: the sun shining, no wind, and light frosts at night,
Speaker 1: these frosts becoming more intense as the days went on
Speaker 1: till by and by they began to think of snow.
Speaker 1: With this spell of fine weather, it was but natural
Speaker 1: that mister Tubrick should think of taking his vixen out
Speaker 1: of doors. This was something he had not yet done,
Speaker 1: both because of the damp, rainy weather up till then,
Speaker 1: and because the mere notion of taking her out filled
Speaker 1: him with alarm. Indeed, he had so many apprehensions beforehand
Speaker 1: that at one time he resolved totally against it, for
Speaker 1: his mind was filled not only with the fear that
Speaker 1: she might escape from him and run away, which he
Speaker 1: knew was groundless, but with more irrational visions such as
Speaker 1: wandering curs, traps, gins, spring guns, besides a dread of
Speaker 1: being seen with her by the neighborhood. At last, however,
Speaker 1: he resolved on it, and all the more, as his
Speaker 1: vixen kept asking him in the gentlest way, might she
Speaker 1: not go out into the garden. Yet she always listened
Speaker 1: very submissively when he told her that he was afraid
Speaker 1: if they were seen together, it would excite the curiosity
Speaker 1: of their neighbors. Besides this, he often told her of
Speaker 1: his spears were her on account of dogs. But one
Speaker 1: day she answered this by leading him into the hall
Speaker 1: and pointing boldly to his gun. After this he resolved
Speaker 1: to take her, though with full precautions. That is, he
Speaker 1: left the house door open, so that in case of need,
Speaker 1: she could beat a swift retreat. Then he took his
Speaker 1: gun under his arm, and lastly he had her well
Speaker 1: wrapped up in a little fur jacket, lest she should
Speaker 1: take cold. He would have carried her too, but that
Speaker 1: she delicately disengaged herself from his arms and looked at
Speaker 1: him very expressively, to say that she would go by herself,
Speaker 1: for already her first horror of being seen to go
Speaker 1: upon all fours was worn off, a reasoning no doubt
Speaker 1: upon it, that either she must resign herself to go
Speaker 1: that way, or else stay bedridden all the rest of
Speaker 1: her life. Her joy at going into the garden was inexpressible.
Speaker 1: First she ran this way, then that, though keeping always
Speaker 1: close to him, looking very sharply, with ears cocked forward,
Speaker 1: first at one thing, then another, and then up to
Speaker 1: catch his eye. For some time, indeed, she was almost
Speaker 1: dancing with delight, running round him, then forward a yard
Speaker 1: or to it, then back to him, and gamboling beside
Speaker 1: him as they went round the garden. But in spite
Speaker 1: of her joy, she was full of fear. At every noise,
Speaker 1: a cow lowing, a cock crowing, or a plant man
Speaker 1: in the distance halloaing to scare the rooks. She started,
Speaker 1: her ears pricked to catch the sound, her muzzle wrinkled up,
Speaker 1: and her nose twitched, and she would then press us
Speaker 1: up against his legs. They walked round the garden and
Speaker 1: down to the pond, where there were ornamental waterfowl teal
Speaker 1: widgeon and mandarin ducks, and seeing these again gave her
Speaker 1: great pleasure. They had always been her favorites, and now
Speaker 1: she was so overjoyed to see them that she behaved
Speaker 1: with very little of her usual self restraint. First she
Speaker 1: stared at them, then, bouncing up to her husband's knee,
Speaker 1: sought to kindle an equal excitement in his mind. Whilst
Speaker 1: she rested her paws on his knee, she turned her
Speaker 1: head again and again towards the ducks, as though she
Speaker 1: could not take her eyes up them, and then ran
Speaker 1: down before him to the water's edge. But her appearance
Speaker 1: through the ducks into the utmost degree of consternation those
Speaker 1: on shore or near the bank. Swam or flew to
Speaker 1: the center of the pond, and there huddled in a bunch,
Speaker 1: and then swimming round and around there began such a
Speaker 1: quacking that mister to Brick was nearly deafened. As I
Speaker 1: have before said, nothing in the ludicrous way that arose
Speaker 1: out of the metamorphosis of his wife, and such incidents
Speaker 1: were plentiful, ever stood a chance of being smiled at
Speaker 1: by him. So in this case too, For realizing that
Speaker 1: the silly ducks fought his wife a fox indeed, and
Speaker 1: were alarmed on that account, he found painful that spectacle,
Speaker 1: which to others might have been amusing. Not so his vixen,
Speaker 1: who appeared, if anything, more pleased than ever when she
Speaker 1: saw in what commotion she had set them, and began
Speaker 1: cutting a thousand pretty capers. Though at first he called
Speaker 1: to her to come back and walk another wed. Mister
Speaker 1: to Brick was overborne by her pleasure and sat down
Speaker 1: while she frisked around him, happier far than he had
Speaker 1: seen her ever since the change. First she ran up
Speaker 1: to him in a laughing way, all smiles, and then
Speaker 1: ran down again to the water's edge, and began frisking
Speaker 1: and quollicking, chasing her own brush, dancing on her hind
Speaker 1: legs even and rolling on the ground. Then fell to
Speaker 1: running in circles, but all this without paying any heed
Speaker 1: to the ducks. But they, with their necks trained out
Speaker 1: or pointing one word, swam to and fro in the
Speaker 1: middle of the pond, never stopping their quack quack quack,
Speaker 1: and keeping time, too, for they all quacked in chorus. Presently,
Speaker 1: she came further away from the pond, and he, thinking
Speaker 1: they had had enough of this sort of entertainment, laid
Speaker 1: hold of her and said to her, come, Sylvia, my dear,
Speaker 1: it is growing cold, and it is time we went indoors.
Speaker 1: I am sure taking the air has done you a
Speaker 1: world of good, but we must not linger any more.
Speaker 1: She appeared then to agree with him, though she threw
Speaker 1: half a glance over her shoulder at the ducks, and
Speaker 1: they both walked soberly enough towards the house. When they
Speaker 1: had gone about half way, she suddenly slipped round and
Speaker 1: was off. He turned quickly and saw the ducks had
Speaker 1: been following them, so she drove them before her back
Speaker 1: into the pond, the ducks running in terror from her
Speaker 1: with their wings spread, and she not pressing them, for
Speaker 1: he saw that had she been so minded, she could
Speaker 1: have caught two or three of the nearest. Then, with
Speaker 1: her brush waving above her, she came gamboling back downs
Speaker 1: so playfully that he stroked her indulgently, though he was
Speaker 1: first vexed and then rather puzzled that his wife should
Speaker 1: amuse herself with so pranks. But when they got within doors,
Speaker 1: he picked her up in his arms, kissed her, and
Speaker 1: spoke to her, so be it, what a light hearted,
Speaker 1: childish creature you are. Your courage, and the misfortune shall
Speaker 1: be a lesson to me, But I cannot bear to
Speaker 1: see it here. The tears stood suddenly in his eyes,
Speaker 1: and he lay down upon the ottoman and wept, paying
Speaker 1: no heed to her, until presently he was aroused by
Speaker 1: her licking his cheek and his ear. After tea. She
Speaker 1: led him to the drawing room and scratched at the
Speaker 1: door till he opened it, for this was part of
Speaker 1: the house which he had shut up, thinking three or
Speaker 1: four rooms enough for them now, and to save the
Speaker 1: dusting of it. Then it seemed she would have him
Speaker 1: play to her on the Pianofortead. She led him to it. Nay,
Speaker 1: what is more, she would as so pick out the
Speaker 1: music he was to play. First it was a fugue
Speaker 1: of handles, then one of Mendelssohn's songs without words, and
Speaker 1: then the Diver, and then music from Gilbert and Sullivan.
Speaker 1: But each piece of music she picked out was gayer
Speaker 1: than the last one. Thus they sat happily and grossed
Speaker 1: for perhaps an hour in the candlelight, until the extreme
Speaker 1: cold in that unwarmed room stopped his playing and drove
Speaker 1: them downstairs to the fire. Thus did she admirably comfort
Speaker 1: her husband when he was dispirited and of Part two
Speaker 1: Part three of A Lady into Fox by David Garnet.
Speaker 1: This LibriVox recording he's in the public domain recording by
Speaker 1: Tony Addison. Yet next morning, when he woke, he was
Speaker 1: distressed when he found that she was not in the
Speaker 1: bed with him, but was lying curled up at the
Speaker 1: foot of it, cheering breakfast. She hardly listened when he spoke,
Speaker 1: and then impatiently, but sat staring at the dove. Mister
Speaker 1: Tebrick sat silently looking out of window for some time.
Speaker 1: Then he took out his pocket book. In it there
Speaker 1: was a photograph of his wife, taken soon after their wedding.
Speaker 1: Now he gazed and gazed upon those familiar features. And
Speaker 1: now he lifted his head and looked at the animal
Speaker 1: before him. He laughed, then, bitterly, the first and last time,
Speaker 1: for that matter, that mister de Brick ever laughed at
Speaker 1: his wife's transfer formation, for he was not very humorous,
Speaker 1: but this laugh was sour and painful to him. Then
Speaker 1: he tore up the purtograph into little pieces and scattered
Speaker 1: them out of the window, saying to himself, memories will
Speaker 1: not help me here, And turning to the vixen, he
Speaker 1: saw that she was still staring at the cage bird,
Speaker 1: and as he looked, he saw her lick her chops.
Speaker 1: He took the bird into the next room. Then, acting
Speaker 1: suddenly upon the impulse, he opened the cage door and
Speaker 1: set it free, saying, as he did. So, go, poor bird,
Speaker 1: fly from this wretched house. While you still remember your
Speaker 1: mistress who fed you from her curled lips. You are
Speaker 1: not a fit plate thing for her neck. Farewell, poor bird, well,
Speaker 1: unless he added with a melancholy smile, you return with
Speaker 1: good tidings like Noah's dove. But poor gentleman, his troubles
Speaker 1: were not over yet, And indeed one may say that
Speaker 1: he ran to meet them by his constant, supposing that
Speaker 1: his lady should still be the same to a tittle
Speaker 1: in her behavior now that she was changed into a
Speaker 1: without making any unwarrantable suppositions as to her soul or
Speaker 1: what had now become of it, though we could find
Speaker 1: a good deal to the purpose on that point in
Speaker 1: the system of Paracelsus, let us consider only how much
Speaker 1: the change in her body must need affect her ordinary conduct,
Speaker 1: so that before we judge too harshly of this unfortunate lady,
Speaker 1: we must reflect upon the physical necessities and infirmities and
Speaker 1: appetites of her new condition, And we must magnify the
Speaker 1: fortitude of her mind, which enabled her to behave with decorum, cleanliness,
Speaker 1: and decency in spite of her new situation. Thus she
Speaker 1: might have been expected to befoul her room. Yet never
Speaker 1: could anyone, whether man or beast, have shown more nicety
Speaker 1: in such matters. But at luncheon mister Tubrick helped her
Speaker 1: to a wing of chicken, and, leaving the room for
Speaker 1: a minute to fetch some water, which she had forgot,
Speaker 1: found her at his return on the table, cunching the
Speaker 1: very bones. He stood silent, dismayed, and wounded to the
Speaker 1: heart at this sight. For we must observe that this
Speaker 1: unfortunate husband thought always of his vixen as that gentle
Speaker 1: and delicate woman she had lately been, so that whenever
Speaker 1: his vixen's conduct went beyond that which she expected in
Speaker 1: his wife, he was, as it were, cut to the quick,
Speaker 1: and no kind of agony could be greater to him
Speaker 1: than to see her thus forget herself. On this account,
Speaker 1: it may indeed be regretted that Missus de Brigg had
Speaker 1: been so exactly well bred, and in particular that her
Speaker 1: table manners had always been scrupulous. Had she been in
Speaker 1: the habit like a continental princess, I have dined with
Speaker 1: of taking her leg of chicken by the drumstick and
Speaker 1: gnawing the flesh it had been far better for him now,
Speaker 1: But as her manners had been perfect, so the lapse
Speaker 1: of them was proportionately painful to him. Thus in this
Speaker 1: instance he stood, as it were, in silent agony till
Speaker 1: she had finished her hideous cunching of the chicken bones,
Speaker 1: and had devoured every scrap. Then he spoke to her, gently,
Speaker 1: taking her on to his knee, stroking her furt, and
Speaker 1: fed her with a few grapes, saying to her, serviet, sylviet,
Speaker 1: is it so hard for you? Try and remember the past,
Speaker 1: my darling, and by living with me we will quite
Speaker 1: forget that you are no longer a woman. Surely this
Speaker 1: affliction will pass soon as suddenly as it came, and
Speaker 1: it will all seem to us like an evil dream. Yet,
Speaker 1: though she appeared perfectly sensible of his words, and gave
Speaker 1: him sorrowful and penitent looks like her old self, that
Speaker 1: same afternoon, on taking her out, he had all the
Speaker 1: difficulty in the world to keep her from going near
Speaker 1: the ducks. There came to him then a thought that
Speaker 1: was very disagreeable to him, namely that he dared not
Speaker 1: trust his wife alone with any bird, or she would
Speaker 1: kill it. And this was the more shocking to him
Speaker 1: to think of, since it meant that he dares not
Speaker 1: trust her as much as a dog, even for we
Speaker 1: may trust dogs who are familiars with all the household pets.
Speaker 1: Nay more, we can put them upon trust with anything
Speaker 1: and know they will not touch it, not even if
Speaker 1: they be starving. But things were come to such a
Speaker 1: pass with his vixen that he dared not in his
Speaker 1: heart trust her at all. Yet she was still, in
Speaker 1: many ways so much more woman than fox, that he
Speaker 1: could talk to her on any subject, and she would
Speaker 1: understand him better, far than the Oriental women who are
Speaker 1: kept in subjection can ever understand their masters unless they
Speaker 1: converse on the most trifling household topics. Thus she understood
Speaker 1: extremely well the importance and duties of religion. She would
Speaker 1: listen with approval in the evening when he said the
Speaker 1: Lord's Prayer, and was rigid in her observance of the Sabbath. Indeed,
Speaker 1: the next day, being Sunday, he, thinking no harm, proposed
Speaker 1: their usual game of piquet, but no, she would not play.
Speaker 1: Mister Tubrick, not understanding at first what she meant, though
Speaker 1: he was usually very quick with her, he proposed it
Speaker 1: to her again, which she again refused, and this time,
Speaker 1: to show her meaning, made the sign of the Cross
Speaker 1: with her poor. This exceedingly rejoiced and comforted him in
Speaker 1: his distress. He begged her pardon, and fervently thanked God
Speaker 1: for having so good a wife, who, in spite of
Speaker 1: all knew more of her duty to God than he did.
Speaker 1: But here I must warn the reader from in Wring
Speaker 1: that she was a papist, because she then made the
Speaker 1: sign of the Cross. She made that sign, to my thinking,
Speaker 1: only on compulsion, because she could not express herself except
Speaker 1: in that way. For she had been brought up as
Speaker 1: a true Protestant, and that she still was one is
Speaker 1: confirmed by her objection to cards, which would have been
Speaker 1: less than nothing to her had she been a papist. Yet,
Speaker 1: that evening, taking her into the drawing room so that
Speaker 1: he might play her some sacred music, he found her,
Speaker 1: after some time, cowering away from him in the farthest
Speaker 1: corner of the room, her ears flattened back, and an
Speaker 1: expression of the greatest anguish in her eyes. When he
Speaker 1: spoke to her, she licked his hand, but remained shivering
Speaker 1: for a long time at his feet, and showed the
Speaker 1: clearest symptoms of terror if he so much as moved
Speaker 1: towards the piano. Seeing this, and recollecting, how ill the
Speaker 1: ears of a dog can bear with our music, and
Speaker 1: how this dislike might be expected to be even greater
Speaker 1: in a fox, all of whose senses are more acute
Speaker 1: from being a wild creature. A recollecting this, he closed
Speaker 1: the piano, and, taking her in his arms, locked up
Speaker 1: the room and never went into it again. He could
Speaker 1: not help marveling, though, since it was but two days
Speaker 1: after she had herself led him there and even picked
Speaker 1: out for him to play and sing those pieces which
Speaker 1: were her favorites. That night, she would not sleep with them,
Speaker 1: neither in the bed nor on it, so that he
Speaker 1: was forced to let her curll us up up on
Speaker 1: the floor, but neither would she sleep there. For several
Speaker 1: times she woke him by trotting around the room, and once,
Speaker 1: when he had got sound asleep, by springing on the
Speaker 1: bed and then off it. He woke with a violent
Speaker 1: start and cried out, but got no answer either, except
Speaker 1: hearing her trotting ground and round the room. Presently, he
Speaker 1: imagined to himself that she must want something, and so
Speaker 1: fetches her food and water, but she never so much
Speaker 1: as looks at it, but still goes on her rounds
Speaker 1: every now and then, scratching at the door. Though he
Speaker 1: spoke to her, calling her by her name, she would
Speaker 1: pay no heed to him or else, only for the moment.
Speaker 1: At last he gave her up and said to her plainly,
Speaker 1: the fit is on you now, Sylvia, to be a fox.
Speaker 1: But I shall keep you close, and in the morning
Speaker 1: you will recollect yourself and thank me for having kept you. Now.
Speaker 1: So he lay down again, but not to sleep, only
Speaker 1: to listen to his wife running about the room and
Speaker 1: trying to get out of it. Thus he spent what
Speaker 1: was perhaps the most miserable night of his existence. In
Speaker 1: the morning, she was still restless and was reluctant to
Speaker 1: let him wash and brush her, and appeared to dislike
Speaker 1: being scented, but as it were, to bear with it
Speaker 1: for his sake. Ordinarily she had taken the greatest pleasure
Speaker 1: imaginable in her toilette, so that on this account added
Speaker 1: to his sleepless night, mister Tubrick was utterly dejected, and
Speaker 1: it was then that he resolved to put a project
Speaker 1: into execution that would show him. So he thought whether
Speaker 1: he had a wife or only a wild vixen in
Speaker 1: his house. But yet he was comforted that she bore
Speaker 1: it all with him, though so restlessly that he did
Speaker 1: not spare her, calling her a bad wild fox, and
Speaker 1: then speaking to her in this manner, Are you not ashamed,
Speaker 1: Soviet to be such a madcap, such a wicked Heyden?
Speaker 1: You who particular in dress? I see it was all vanity.
Speaker 1: Now you have not your former advantages, who think nothing
Speaker 1: of decency. His words had some effect with her too,
Speaker 1: and with himself, so that by the time he had
Speaker 1: finished dressing her, they were both in the lowest status,
Speaker 1: spirits imaginable, and neither of them far from tears. Breakfast
Speaker 1: she took soberly enough, and after that he went about
Speaker 1: getting his experiment ready, which was this. In the garden,
Speaker 1: he gathered together a nosegay of snowdrops, those being all
Speaker 1: the flowers he could find, and then, going into the
Speaker 1: village of Stoccoe, bought a Dutch rabbit, that is, a
Speaker 1: black and white one from a man there who kept them.
Speaker 1: When he got back, he took her flowers and at
Speaker 1: the same time set down the basket with a rabbit
Speaker 1: in it, with the lid open. Then he called to her, Sylvia,
Speaker 1: I have brought some flowers for you. Look the first snowdrops.
Speaker 1: At this, she ran up, very prettily, and never giving
Speaker 1: as much as one glance at the rabbit, which had
Speaker 1: hopped out of its basket. She began to thank him
Speaker 1: for the flowers. Indeed, she seemed indefatigable in showing her gratitude.
Speaker 1: Smelt them, stood a little way off looking at them,
Speaker 1: then thanked him again, mister Tubrick, And this was all
Speaker 1: part of his plan. Then took a pause and went
Speaker 1: to find some water for them, but left the flowers
Speaker 1: beside her. He stepped away five minutes, timing it by
Speaker 1: his watch and listening very intently, but never heard the
Speaker 1: rabbit squeak. Yet when he went in, what a horrid
Speaker 1: shambles were spread before his eyes. Blood on the up it,
Speaker 1: blood on the arm chairs, and antimacasses, even a little
Speaker 1: blood spurted on to the wall. And what was worse,
Speaker 1: missus de Brick tearing and growling over a piece of
Speaker 1: the skin and the legs, for she had eaten up
Speaker 1: all the rest of it. The poor gentleman was so
Speaker 1: heart broken over this that he was like to have
Speaker 1: done himself an injury, and that one moment thought of
Speaker 1: getting his gun to have shot himself and his vixen too. Indeed,
Speaker 1: the extremity of his grief was such that it served
Speaker 1: him a very good turn, for he was so entirely
Speaker 1: unmanned by it that for some time he could do
Speaker 1: nothing but weep, and fell into a chair with his
Speaker 1: head in his hands, and so kept weeping and groaning.
Speaker 1: After he had been some little while employed in this
Speaker 1: dismal way, his vixen, who had by this time bolted
Speaker 1: down the rabbit's skin, head, ears and all, came to him, and,
Speaker 1: putting her paws on his knees, thrust her long muzzle
Speaker 1: into his face and began looking him. But he, looking
Speaker 1: at her now with different eyes, and seeing her jaws
Speaker 1: still sprinkled with fresh blood and her claws full of
Speaker 1: the rabbit's fleck, would have none of it. But though
Speaker 1: he beat her up four or five times, even to
Speaker 1: giving her blows and kicks, she still came back to him,
Speaker 1: crawling on her belly and imploring his forgiveness with wide open,
Speaker 1: sorrowful eyes. Before he had made this rash experiment of
Speaker 1: the rabbit and the flowers, he had promised himself that
Speaker 1: if she failed in it, he would have no more
Speaker 1: feeling or compassion for her than if she were, in
Speaker 1: truth a wild vixen out of the woods. This resolution,
Speaker 1: though the reasons were, it, had seemed to him so
Speaker 1: very plain before, he now found more difficult to carry
Speaker 1: out than to side on a plumb. After cursing it
Speaker 1: and beating it up upwards of half an hour, he
Speaker 1: admitted to himself that he still did care for her,
Speaker 1: and even loved her dearly, in spite of all whatever
Speaker 1: pretense he affected towards her. When he had acknowledged this,
Speaker 1: he looked up at her and met her eyes fixed
Speaker 1: upon him, and held out his arms to her, and said, oh, Soviet, Soviet,
Speaker 1: would you had never done this? Would I had never
Speaker 1: tempted you in a fatal hour? Does not this butchery
Speaker 1: and eating of raw meat and rabbitspur disgust you? Are
Speaker 1: you a monster in your soul as well as in
Speaker 1: your body? Have you forgotten what it is to be
Speaker 1: a woman? Meanwhile, with every word of his she crawled
Speaker 1: a step nearer on her belly, and at flask climbed
Speaker 1: sorrowfully into his arms. His words, then, seeing to take
Speaker 1: effect on her, and her eyes filled with tears, and
Speaker 1: she wept most penitently in his arms, and her body
Speaker 1: shook with her sobs, as if her heart were breaking.
Speaker 1: This sorrow of hers gave him the strangest mixture of
Speaker 1: pain and joyed that he had ever known, for his
Speaker 1: love for her returning with a rush. He could not
Speaker 1: bear to witness her pain, and yet must take pleasure
Speaker 1: in it, as it fed his hopes of her one
Speaker 1: day returning to be a woman. So the more anguish
Speaker 1: of shame his vixen underwent, the greater his hopes rose,
Speaker 1: till his love and pity for her increasing equally. He
Speaker 1: was almost wishing her to be nothing more than a
Speaker 1: mere fox, than to suffer so much by being half human.
Speaker 1: At last, he looked about him, somewhat dazed with so
Speaker 1: much weeping, then set his vixen down on the ottoman
Speaker 1: and began to clean up the room with a heavy heart.
Speaker 1: He fetched a pail of water and washed out all
Speaker 1: the stains of blood, gathered up the two antimacasses, and
Speaker 1: fetched clean ones from the other rooms. While he went
Speaker 1: about this work, his vixen sat and watched him very
Speaker 1: contritely with a nose between her two front paws, And
Speaker 1: when he had done, he brought in some luncheon for himself,
Speaker 1: though it was already late, but none for her, she
Speaker 1: having lately so infamously feasted. But water he gave her,
Speaker 1: and a bunch of grapes. Afterwards, she led him to
Speaker 1: the small tortoiseshell cabinet and would have him open it.
Speaker 1: When he had done so, she motioned to the portable
Speaker 1: stereoscope which lay inside. Mister Tebrick instantly fell in with
Speaker 1: her wish, and after a few trials, adjusted it to
Speaker 1: her vision. They spent the rest of the afternoon together
Speaker 1: very happily, looking through the collection of views which he
Speaker 1: had purchased of Italy, Spain and Scotland. This diversion gave
Speaker 1: a great apparent pleasure and afforded him considerable comfort. But
Speaker 1: that night he could not prevail upon her to sleep
Speaker 1: in bed with him, and finally allowed her to sleep
Speaker 1: on a mat beside the bed, where he could stretch
Speaker 1: down and touch it. So they passed the night with
Speaker 1: his hand upon her head. End of Part three, Part four,
Speaker 1: Our Lady into Fox by David Garnet. This sleeprivox recording
Speaker 1: is in the public domain recording by Tony Addison. The
Speaker 1: next morning he had more of a struggle than ever
Speaker 1: to wash and dress her. Indeed, at one time nothing
Speaker 1: but holding her by the scruff prevented her from getting
Speaker 1: away from him. But at last he achieved his object,
Speaker 1: and she was washed, brushed, scented, and dressed, although to
Speaker 1: be sure, the sleept him better pleased than her, for
Speaker 1: she regarded her silk jacket with disfavor. Still at breakfast
Speaker 1: she was well mannered, though a trifle hasty with her food.
Speaker 1: Then his difficulties with her began, for she would go at,
Speaker 1: but as he had his housework to do, he could
Speaker 1: not allow it. He brought her picture books to divert her,
Speaker 1: but she would have none of them, but stayed at
Speaker 1: the door, scratching it with her claws industriously till she
Speaker 1: worn away the paint. At first, he tried coaxing her
Speaker 1: and wheedling, gave her cards to play Patience, and so on,
Speaker 1: but finding nothing would distract her from going out, his
Speaker 1: temper began to rise, and he told her plainly that
Speaker 1: she must wait his pleasure, and that he had as
Speaker 1: much natural obstinacy as she had. But to all that
Speaker 1: he said, she paid no heed whatever, but only scratched
Speaker 1: the ardor. Thus he let her continue until luncheon, when
Speaker 1: she would not set up or eat off a plate,
Speaker 1: but first was forgetting on to the table, and when
Speaker 1: that was prevented, snatched her meat and ate it under
Speaker 1: the table. To all his rebukes, she turned a death
Speaker 1: or sullen ear. And so they each finished them meal,
Speaker 1: eating little either of them. But till she would sit
Speaker 1: at table, he would give her no more, and his
Speaker 1: vexation had taken away his own appetite. In the afternoon
Speaker 1: he took her out for her airing in the garden.
Speaker 1: She made no pretense now of enjoying the first snowdrops
Speaker 1: or the view from the terrace. No, there was only
Speaker 1: one thing for her now, the ducks, and she was
Speaker 1: off to them before he could stop her. Luckily, they
Speaker 1: were all swimming when she got there, for a stream
Speaker 1: running into the pond on the far side. It was
Speaker 1: not frozen there. When he had got down to the pond,
Speaker 1: she ran out onto the ice, which would not pare
Speaker 1: his weight. And though he called her and begged her
Speaker 1: to come back, she would not heed him, but stayed
Speaker 1: frisking about getting as near the ducks as she dead,
Speaker 1: but being circumspect in venturing on to the thin ice, Presently,
Speaker 1: she turned on herself and began tearing off her clothes,
Speaker 1: and at last, by biting, got off her little jacket,
Speaker 1: and taking it in her mouth, stupped it into a
Speaker 1: hole in the ice, where he could not get it.
Speaker 1: Then she ran hither and thither, a star naked vixen,
Speaker 1: And without giving a glance to her poor husband, who
Speaker 1: stood silently now upon the bank, with despair and terror
Speaker 1: settled in his mind, she let him stay there most
Speaker 1: of the afternoon, till he was chilled through and through
Speaker 1: and worn out with watching her. At last he reflected
Speaker 1: how she had just stripped herself, and how in the
Speaker 1: morning she struggled against being dressed, And he thought perhaps
Speaker 1: he was too strict with her, and if he let
Speaker 1: her have her own way, they could manage to be
Speaker 1: happy somehow together, even if she did eat up the floor,
Speaker 1: So he called out to her, then, Sylvia, come now,
Speaker 1: be good. You sha'n't wear any more clothes if you
Speaker 1: don't want to, and you needn't sit at table neither.
Speaker 1: I promise you shall do as you like in that,
Speaker 1: but you must give up one thing, and that is
Speaker 1: you must stay with me and not go out alone,
Speaker 1: for that's dangerous. If any dog came on you, he
Speaker 1: would kill you. Directly he had finished speaking, she came
Speaker 1: to him joyously began fawning on him and prancing round him,
Speaker 1: so that, in spite of his vexation with her and
Speaker 1: being cold, he could not help stroking her. Oh, Sylvie,
Speaker 1: are you not wilful and cunning? I see you glory
Speaker 1: in being so. But I shall not reproach you, but
Speaker 1: shall stick to my side of the bargain, and you
Speaker 1: must stick to yours. He built a big fire when
Speaker 1: he came back to the house, and took a glass
Speaker 1: of der spirits, also to warm himself up, for he
Speaker 1: was chilled to the very bone. Then, after they had dinner,
Speaker 1: to cheer himself, he took another glass, and then another,
Speaker 1: and so on till he was very merry. He thought,
Speaker 1: then he would play with his vixen, she encouraging him
Speaker 1: with her pretty spotiveness. He got up to catchure them, and,
Speaker 1: finding himself unsteady on his legs, he went down onto
Speaker 1: all fours. The long and the short of it is
Speaker 1: that by drinking he drowned all his sorrow, and then
Speaker 1: would be a beast too, like his wife, though she
Speaker 1: was warm through no fault of her own, and could
Speaker 1: not help it. To what lengths he went then in
Speaker 1: that drunken humor, I shall not offend my readers by relating,
Speaker 1: shall only say that he was so drunk and Scottish
Speaker 1: that he had a very imperfect recollection of what had
Speaker 1: passed when he woke the next morning. There is no
Speaker 1: exception to the rule that if a man drink heavily
Speaker 1: at night, the next morning will show the other side
Speaker 1: to his nature. Thus with mister Tubrick. For as he
Speaker 1: had been beastly, merry and a very dar devil the
Speaker 1: night before, so on his awakening was he ashamed, melancholy,
Speaker 1: and a true penitent before his creator. The first thing
Speaker 1: he did when he came to himself was to call
Speaker 1: out to God to forgive him for his sin. Then
Speaker 1: he fell into earnest prayer, and continued so for half
Speaker 1: an hour upon his knees. Then he got up and dressed,
Speaker 1: but continued very melancholy for the whole of the morning.
Speaker 1: Being in this mood, you may imagine it hurt him
Speaker 1: to see his wife running about naked, But he reflected
Speaker 1: it would be a bad reformation that began with breaking faith.
Speaker 1: He had made a bargain, and he would stick to it,
Speaker 1: And so he let her be, though sorely against his will,
Speaker 1: for the same reason, that is, because he would stick
Speaker 1: to his side of the bargain. He did not require
Speaker 1: her to sit up at table, but gave her her
Speaker 1: breakfast on the dish in the corner where to tell
Speaker 1: the truth. She, on her side, ate it all up
Speaker 1: with great daintiness and propriety. Nor did she make any
Speaker 1: attempt to go out of doors that morning, but lay
Speaker 1: cled up in an armchair before the fire, dozing. After lunch,
Speaker 1: he took her out, and she never so much as
Speaker 1: offered to go near the ducks, but running before him,
Speaker 1: led him on to take her a longer walk there
Speaker 1: he consented to do, very much to her joy and delight.
Speaker 1: He took her through the fields by the most unfrequented ways,
Speaker 1: being much alarmed lest they should be seen by anyone.
Speaker 1: But by good luck they walked above four miles across
Speaker 1: country and saw nobody all the way. His wife kept
Speaker 1: running on ahead of him, and then back to him
Speaker 1: to lick his hand and so on, and appeared delighted
Speaker 1: at taking exercise. And though they startled two or three
Speaker 1: rabbits and a hurt in the course of their walk,
Speaker 1: she never attempted to go after them, only giving them
Speaker 1: a look and then looking back to him, laughing at him,
Speaker 1: as it were for his warning cry of puss, come
Speaker 1: in no nonsense, nag. Just when they got home and
Speaker 1: were going into the porch, they came face to face
Speaker 1: with an old woman. Mister Tabrick stopped shut in consternation
Speaker 1: and looked about for his vixen, but she had run
Speaker 1: forward without any shyness to greet her. Then he recognized
Speaker 1: the intruder. It was his wife's old nurse. What are
Speaker 1: you doing here, missus Cork, he asked her. Missus Cork
Speaker 1: answered him in these words, poor thing, poor miss Sylvia.
Speaker 1: It is a shame to let her run about like
Speaker 1: a dog. It is a shame, and your own wife too.
Speaker 1: But whatsoever, she looks like. You should trust her the
Speaker 1: same as ever. If you do, she'll do her best
Speaker 1: to be a good wife to you. If you don't,
Speaker 1: I shouldn't wonder if she did turn into a proper box.
Speaker 1: I saw her, sir, before I left, and I've had
Speaker 1: no peace of mind. I couldn't sleep thinking of her.
Speaker 1: So I've come back to look after her as I
Speaker 1: have done all her life. Said, And she stooped down
Speaker 1: and took Missus de Brigg by the poor to Brick
Speaker 1: unlocked the door, and they went in. When missus Cork
Speaker 1: saw the house, she exclaimed again and again the place
Speaker 1: was a pigstyed. They couldn't live like that. A gentleman
Speaker 1: must have somebody to look after him. She would do it.
Speaker 1: He could just her with the secret. Had the old
Speaker 1: woman come the day before, it is like clear enough
Speaker 1: that mister de Brick would have sent her backing. But
Speaker 1: the voice of conscience being woken in him by his
Speaker 1: drunkenness of the night before, he was heartily ashamed of
Speaker 1: his own management of the business. Moreover, the old woman's
Speaker 1: words that it was a shame to let her run
Speaker 1: about like a dog moved him exceedingly. Being in this mood.
Speaker 1: The truth is he welcomed her. But we may conclude
Speaker 1: that missus Brick was as sorry to see her old
Speaker 1: nanny as her husband was glad if we can consider
Speaker 1: that she had been brought up strictly by her when
Speaker 1: she was a child and was now again in her power,
Speaker 1: and that her old nurse could never be satisfied with
Speaker 1: her now whatever she did, but would always think her
Speaker 1: wicked to be a fox at all, there seems good
Speaker 1: reason for her dislike. And it is possible too that
Speaker 1: there may have been another cause as well, and that
Speaker 1: is jealousy. We know her husband was always trying to
Speaker 1: bring her back to be a woman, or at any rate,
Speaker 1: to get her to act like one. May she not
Speaker 1: have been hoping to get him to be like a
Speaker 1: beast himself, or to act like one. May she not
Speaker 1: have thought it easier to change him thus than ever
Speaker 1: to change herself back into being a woman. If we
Speaker 1: think that she had had a success of this kind
Speaker 1: only the night before, when he got drunk, can we
Speaker 1: not conclude that this was indeed the case? And then
Speaker 1: we have another good reason why the poor lady should
Speaker 1: hate to see her old nurse. It is certain that
Speaker 1: whatever hopes mister to Brick had of missus Cork affecting
Speaker 1: his wife for the better were disappointed. She grew steadily wilder,
Speaker 1: and after a few days so intractable with her that
Speaker 1: mister to Brick again took her under his complete control.
Speaker 1: The first morning, missus Cork made her a new jacket,
Speaker 1: cutting down the sleeves of a blue silk one of
Speaker 1: Missus de Brick's and trimming it with Swan's dam and
Speaker 1: directly she had altered it, put it on her mistress,
Speaker 1: and fetching a mirror would have her admired the fit
Speaker 1: of it. All the time she waited on Missus de Brick,
Speaker 1: the old woman talked to her as though she were
Speaker 1: a baby, and treated her as such, never thinking perhaps
Speaker 1: that she was either the one thing or the other,
Speaker 1: that is, either a lady to whom she owed respect
Speaker 1: and who had rational powers exceeding her own, or else
Speaker 1: a wild creature on whom words were wasted. But though
Speaker 1: at first she submitted passively, Missus de Brick only waited
Speaker 1: for her nanny's back to be turned, to tear up
Speaker 1: a pretty piece of handiwork into shreds, and then ran
Speaker 1: gaily about waving her brush with only a few ribbons
Speaker 1: still hanging from her neck. So it was time after
Speaker 1: time for the old woman was used to having her
Speaker 1: own way until Missus Cork would I think have tried
Speaker 1: punishing her if she had not been afraid of Missus
Speaker 1: de Brick's rows of white teeth, which she often showed at,
Speaker 1: then laughing afterwards, as if to say it was only plague.
Speaker 1: Not content with tearing up the dresses that were putted
Speaker 1: on her. One day, Sylvia slipped upstairs to her wardrobe
Speaker 1: and tore down all her old dresses and made havoc
Speaker 1: with them, not sparing her wedding dress either, but tearing
Speaker 1: and ripping them all up, so that there was hardly
Speaker 1: a shred or rag left pickin up the dresser dolling.
Speaker 1: On this, mister t Brigg, who had let the old
Speaker 1: woman have most of her management to see what she
Speaker 1: could make of her, took her back under his own control.
Speaker 1: He was sorry enough now that Missus Cork had disappointed
Speaker 1: him in the hopes he had had of her, to
Speaker 1: have the old woman, as it were, on his hands too.
Speaker 1: She could be useful enough in many ways to him
Speaker 1: by doing the housework, the cooking and mending. But still
Speaker 1: he was anxious since his secret was in her keeping,
Speaker 1: and the more now that she had tried her hand
Speaker 1: with his wife and failed, for he saw that Vanity
Speaker 1: had kept her mouth shut if she had won over
Speaker 1: her mistress to better ways, and her love for her
Speaker 1: would have grown by getting her own way with her.
Speaker 1: But now that she had failed, she bore her mistress
Speaker 1: a grudge for not being won over, or at the
Speaker 1: best was become indifferent to the business, so that she
Speaker 1: might very readily blab. For the moment, all mister de
Speaker 1: Brigg could do was to keep her from going into Stokoe,
Speaker 1: to the village, where she would meet all her old cronies,
Speaker 1: and where there was certain to be any number of
Speaker 1: inquiries about what was going on at Ryland's and so on.
Speaker 1: But as he saw that it was clearly beyond his power,
Speaker 1: however vigilant he might be to watch over the old
Speaker 1: woman and his wife and to prevent anyone from meeting
Speaker 1: with either of them, he began to consider what he
Speaker 1: could best do. Since he had sent away his servants
Speaker 1: and the gardener giving out a story of having received
Speaker 1: bad news, and his wife going away to London, where
Speaker 1: he would join her there, probably going out of England,
Speaker 1: and so on, he knew well enough that there would
Speaker 1: be a great deal of talk in the neighborhood, and
Speaker 1: as he had now stayed on contrary to what he
Speaker 1: had said, they would be further rumor. Indeed, had he
Speaker 1: known it, there was a story already going round the
Speaker 1: country that his wife would run away with Major Solmes,
Speaker 1: and that he was gone mad with grief, that he
Speaker 1: had shot his dogs and his horses and shut himself
Speaker 1: up alone in the house and would speak with no one.
Speaker 1: This story was made up by his neighbors, not because
Speaker 1: they were fancible or wanted to deceive, but, like most
Speaker 1: tittle tattle, to fill a gap, as few liked to
Speaker 1: confess ignorance. And if people are asked about such or
Speaker 1: such a man, they must have something to say, or
Speaker 1: they suffer in everybody's opinion, or set down as dull
Speaker 1: or out of the swim. In this way, I met
Speaker 1: not long ago someone who, after talking some little while
Speaker 1: and not knowing me or who I was, had told
Speaker 1: me that David Garnett was dead and died of being
Speaker 1: bitten by a cat after he had tormented it. He
Speaker 1: had long grown a nuisance to his friends, as an
Speaker 1: exorbitant sponge upon them, and the world was well rid
Speaker 1: of him. Hearing this story of myself diverted me at
Speaker 1: the time, but I fully believe it has served me
Speaker 1: in good stead since, for it set me on my guard,
Speaker 1: as perhaps nothing else would have done against accepting for
Speaker 1: true all floating rumor and village gossip, so that now
Speaker 1: I am, by second nature a true skeptic, and scarce
Speaker 1: to believe anything unless the evidence for it is conclusive. Indeed,
Speaker 1: I could never have got to the bottom of this
Speaker 1: history if I had believed one tenth part of what
Speaker 1: I was told. There was so much of it that
Speaker 1: was either manifest be false and absurd, or else contradictory
Speaker 1: to the ascertained facts. It is therefore only the bare
Speaker 1: bones of the story which you will find written here,
Speaker 1: For I have rejected all the flowery embroiderers, which would
Speaker 1: be entertaining reading enough, I dare say for some. But
Speaker 1: if there be any doubt of the truth of a thing,
Speaker 1: it is poor sort of entertainment to read about, in
Speaker 1: my opinion. End of Part four, Part five of Lady
Speaker 1: into Fox by David Garnett. This LibriVox recording is in
Speaker 1: the public domain recording by Tony Addison. To get back
Speaker 1: to our story, mister Tubrick having said that how much
Speaker 1: the appetite of his neighbors would be whetted to find
Speaker 1: out the mystery by his remaining in that part of
Speaker 1: the country, determined that the best thing he could do
Speaker 1: was to remove. After some time turning the thing over
Speaker 1: in his mind, he decided that no place would be
Speaker 1: so good for his purpose as Old Nanny's cottage. It
Speaker 1: was thirty miles away from Stokok, which in the country
Speaker 1: means as far as Timbuctoo does to us in London.
Speaker 1: Then it was near Tangley, and his lady, having known
Speaker 1: it from her childhood, would feel at home there. And
Speaker 1: also it was utterly remote, there being no village near
Speaker 1: it or manor house other than Tangley Hall, which was
Speaker 1: now untenanted for the greater part of the year. Nor
Speaker 1: did it mean imparting his secret to others. There was
Speaker 1: only Missus Cork's son, a widower, who, being out at
Speaker 1: work all day, would be easily outwitted, the more so
Speaker 1: as he was stone deaf and of a slow and
Speaker 1: saturnine disposition. To be sure that there was little poly
Speaker 1: Missus Cork's granddaughter, but either mister t Brick forgot her
Speaker 1: altogether or else reckoned her as a mere baby and
Speaker 1: not to be thought of as a danger. He talked
Speaker 1: the thing over with Missus Kor, and they decided upon
Speaker 1: it out of hand. The truth is, the old woman
Speaker 1: was beginning to regret that her love and her curiosity
Speaker 1: had ever brought her back to Ryland's, since so far
Speaker 1: she had got much work and little credit by it.
Speaker 1: When it was settled, mister Brick disposed of the remaining
Speaker 1: business he had at Rylands in the afternoon, and that
Speaker 1: was cheaply putting out his wife's riding horse into the
Speaker 1: keeping of a farmer nearby, for he thought he would
Speaker 1: drive over with his own horse and the other spare
Speaker 1: horse tandem in the dog cart. The next morning, they
Speaker 1: locked up the house and they departed, having first secured
Speaker 1: Missus de Brigg in a large wicker hamper where she
Speaker 1: would be tolerably comfortable. This was for safety, for in
Speaker 1: the agitation of driving she might jump out, and on
Speaker 1: the other hand, if a dog scented her and she
Speaker 1: were loose, she might be in danger of her life.
Speaker 1: Mister de Brick drove with the hamper beside him on
Speaker 1: the front seat, and spoke to her gently very often.
Speaker 1: She he was overcome by the excitement of the journey,
Speaker 1: and kept poking her nose first through one crevice, then
Speaker 1: through another, turning and twisting the whole time and peeping
Speaker 1: out to see what they were passing. It was a
Speaker 1: bitterly cold dead and when they had gone about fifteen miles,
Speaker 1: they drew up by the roadside to rest the horses
Speaker 1: and have their own luncheon. For he dared not stop
Speaker 1: at an inn. He knew that any living creature in
Speaker 1: a hamper, even if it be only an old fowl,
Speaker 1: always draws attention. There would be several loafers, most likely,
Speaker 1: who would notice that he had a fox with him,
Speaker 1: And even if he left the hamper in the cart,
Speaker 1: the dog at the inn would be sure to sniff
Speaker 1: out her scent. So not to take any chances, he
Speaker 1: drew up at the side of the road and arrested that.
Speaker 1: Though it was freezing hard and a northeast wind howling,
Speaker 1: he took down his precious hamper, unharnessed his two horses,
Speaker 1: covered them with rugs, and gave them their corn. Then
Speaker 1: he opened the basket and let his wife out. She
Speaker 1: was quite beside herself with joy, running hither and thither,
Speaker 1: bouncing up on him, looking about her, and even rolling
Speaker 1: over on the ground. Mister to Brick took this to
Speaker 1: mean that she was glad at making this journey, and
Speaker 1: rejoiced equally with her. As for missus Cork, she sat
Speaker 1: motionless on the back seat of the dog cart, while
Speaker 1: wrapped up, eating her sandwiches, but would not speak a word.
Speaker 1: When they had stayed there half an hour, mister to
Speaker 1: Brick harnessed the horses again, though he was so cold
Speaker 1: he could scarcely buckle the straps and put his vicksen
Speaker 1: in her basket, But seeing that she wanted to look
Speaker 1: about her, he let her tear away the osiers with
Speaker 1: her teeth till she had made a hole big enough
Speaker 1: for her to put her head out of. They drove
Speaker 1: on again, and then the snow began to come down,
Speaker 1: and that in earnest, so that he began to be
Speaker 1: afraid they would never cover the ground. But just after
Speaker 1: the nightfall they got in, and he was content to leave,
Speaker 1: unharnessing the horses and baiting them to Simon, missus Cork's son.
Speaker 1: His vixen was tired by then as well as he,
Speaker 1: and they stept together, he in the bed and she
Speaker 1: under it very contentedly. The next morning he looked about
Speaker 1: him at the place and found the thing there that
Speaker 1: he most wanted, and that was a little walled in
Speaker 1: garden where his wife could run in freedom and yet
Speaker 1: be in safety. After they had had breakfast, she was
Speaker 1: wild to go out into the snow, so they went
Speaker 1: out together. And he had never seen such a mad
Speaker 1: creature in all this life as his wife was them,
Speaker 1: For she ran to and fro as if she were crazy,
Speaker 1: biting at the snow and rolling in it, and round
Speaker 1: and round in circles, and rushed back at him fiercely,
Speaker 1: as if she meant to bite him. He joined her
Speaker 1: in the frolic and began snowballing her till she was
Speaker 1: so wild that it was all he could do to
Speaker 1: quiet her again and bring her in doors for luncheon. Indeed,
Speaker 1: with her gambolings she trapped the whole garden over with
Speaker 1: her feet. He could see where she had rolled in
Speaker 1: the snow and where she had danced in it, and
Speaker 1: looking at those prints of her feet as they went
Speaker 1: in made his heart ache. He knew not why they
Speaker 1: passed the first day at Old Nanny's cottage happily enough,
Speaker 1: without their usual bickerings, and this because of the novelty
Speaker 1: of the snow which had diverted them in the afternoon.
Speaker 1: He first showed his wife to little Polly, who eyed
Speaker 1: her very curiously, but hung back shyly and seemed a
Speaker 1: good deal afraid of the fox. But mister Tobrick took
Speaker 1: up a book and let them get acquainted by themselves,
Speaker 1: and presently, looking up, saw that they had come together,
Speaker 1: and Polly was stroking his wife, patting her and running
Speaker 1: her fingers through her fer Presently she began talking to
Speaker 1: the fox, and then brought her dollin to show her,
Speaker 1: so that very soon they were very good playmates together.
Speaker 1: Watching the two gave mister to Brick great delight, and
Speaker 1: in particular when he noticed that there was something very
Speaker 1: motherly in his vixen. She was indeed far above the
Speaker 1: child in intelligence, and restrained herself too from any hasty action.
Speaker 1: But while she seemed to wait on Polly's pleasure, yet
Speaker 1: she managed to give a twist to the game. Whatever
Speaker 1: it was that never failed to delight the little girl.
Speaker 1: In short, in a very little while, Polly was so
Speaker 1: taken with her new playmate that she cried when she
Speaker 1: was parted from her, and wanted her always with her.
Speaker 1: This disposition of Missus de Brigg's made Missus Cork more
Speaker 1: agreeable than she had been lately, either to the husband
Speaker 1: or the wife. Three days after they had come to
Speaker 1: the cottage, the weather changed, and they woke up one
Speaker 1: morning to find the snow gone, and the wind in
Speaker 1: the south, and the sun shining, so that it was
Speaker 1: like the first beginning of spring. Mister Tubrick let his
Speaker 1: vixen out into the garden after breakfast, stayed with her awhile,
Speaker 1: and then went indoors to write some letters. When he
Speaker 1: got out again, he could see no sign of her anywhere,
Speaker 1: so that he ran about bewildered, calling to her. At
Speaker 1: last he spied a mound of fresh earth by the
Speaker 1: wall in one corner of the garden, and running thither,
Speaker 1: found that there was a hole freshly dug, seeming to
Speaker 1: go under the wall. On this he ran out of
Speaker 1: the garden quickly till he came to the other side
Speaker 1: of the wall. But there was no hole there, so
Speaker 1: he concluded that she was not yet got through, so
Speaker 1: it proved to be for reaching down into the hole,
Speaker 1: he felt her brush with his hand and could hear
Speaker 1: her distinctly working away with her claws. He called to
Speaker 1: her then, saying Sylvia, Sylvia, why do you do this?
Speaker 1: How are you trying to escape from me? I am
Speaker 1: your husband, and if I keep you confined, it is
Speaker 1: to protect you, not to let you run into danger.
Speaker 1: Show me how I can make you happy, and I
Speaker 1: will do it, But do not try to escape from me.
Speaker 1: I love you, Sylvia. Is it because of that that
Speaker 1: you want to fly from me to go into the
Speaker 1: world where you will be in danger of your life always?
Speaker 1: There are dogs everywhere, and they all would kill you
Speaker 1: if it were not for me. Come out, Sylvia, Come out.
Speaker 1: But Sylvia would not listen to him, so we waited
Speaker 1: there silent. Then he spoke to her in a different way,
Speaker 1: asking her had she forgot the bargain she made with
Speaker 1: him that she would not go out alone, But now,
Speaker 1: when she had all the liberty of a garden to herself,
Speaker 1: would she wantonly break her word? And he asked her
Speaker 1: were they not married, and had she not always found
Speaker 1: him a good husband to her? But she heeded this
Speaker 1: neither until presently, his temper getting somewhat out of hand,
Speaker 1: he cursed her obstinacy and told her if she would
Speaker 1: be a damned box, she was welcomed to it. For
Speaker 1: his part, he could get his own way. She had
Speaker 1: not escaped yet, He would dig her out, for he
Speaker 1: still had time, and if she struggled, put her in
Speaker 1: a bag. These words brought her forth instantly, and she
Speaker 1: looked at him with as much astonishment as if she
Speaker 1: knew not what could have made him angry. Yes, she
Speaker 1: even fawned on him, but in a good natured kind
Speaker 1: of way, as if she were a very good wife,
Speaker 1: putting up wonderfully with her husband's temper. These heirs of
Speaker 1: hers made the poor gentleman so simple was he repent
Speaker 1: his outburst and feel most ashamed. But for all that,
Speaker 1: when she was out of the hole, he filled it
Speaker 1: up with great stones and beat them in with a crowbar,
Speaker 1: so she should find her work at that point harder
Speaker 1: than before, if she was tempted to begin it again.
Speaker 1: In the afternoon, he let her go again into the garden,
Speaker 1: but sent little Polly with her to keep her company.
Speaker 1: But presently, on looking out, he saw his vixen had
Speaker 1: climbed up into the limbs of an old pear tree,
Speaker 1: and was looking over the wall, and was not so
Speaker 1: far from it, but she might jump over it if
Speaker 1: she could get a little further. Mister t Brick ran
Speaker 1: out into the garden as quick as he could, and
Speaker 1: when his wife saw him, it seemed she was startled
Speaker 1: and made a full spring at the wall, so that
Speaker 1: she missed reaching it, and fell back heavily to the
Speaker 1: ground and lay there insensible. When mister t Brick got
Speaker 1: up to her, he found her head was twisted under
Speaker 1: her by her fall, and the neck seemed to be broken.
Speaker 1: The shock was so great to him that for some
Speaker 1: time he could not do anything but knelt beside her,
Speaker 1: turning her limp body stupidly in his hands. At length,
Speaker 1: he recognized that she was indeed dead, and, beginning to
Speaker 1: consider what dreadful afflictions God had visited him with, he
Speaker 1: blasphemed horribly and called on God to strike him dead
Speaker 1: and give his wife back to him. Is it not enough,
Speaker 1: he cried, adding a foul, blasphemous oath, that you should
Speaker 1: rob me of my dear wife, making her a fox.
Speaker 1: But now you must rob me of that fox too,
Speaker 1: that hath been my only solace and comfort in this affliction.
Speaker 1: Then he burst into tears and began wringing his hands,
Speaker 1: and continued there in such an extremity of grief for
Speaker 1: half an hour that he cared nothing, neither what he
Speaker 1: was doing nor what would become of him in the future,
Speaker 1: but only knew that his life was ended now, and
Speaker 1: he would not live any longer than he could help.
Speaker 1: All this while the little girl Polly stood by, first staring,
Speaker 1: then asking him what had happened, and lastly crying with fear.
Speaker 1: But he never heeded her, nor looked at her, but
Speaker 1: only tore his head, sometimes shouted at God, or shook
Speaker 1: his best at Heaven. So in a fright, Polly opened
Speaker 1: the door and ran out of the garden. At length,
Speaker 1: worn out, and as it were, all numb with his loss,
Speaker 1: mister Turbrick got up and went within doors, leaving his
Speaker 1: dear fox lying near where she had fallen. He stayed
Speaker 1: indoors only two minutes, and then came out again again,
Speaker 1: with a razor in his hand, intending to cut his
Speaker 1: own throat, for he was out of his senses in
Speaker 1: this first paroxysm of grief, but his vixen was gone,
Speaker 1: at which he looked about for a moment, bewildered and
Speaker 1: then enraged, thinking that somebody must have taken the body.
Speaker 1: The door of the garden being opened, he ran straight
Speaker 1: through it. Now, this door, which had been left ajar
Speaker 1: by Polly when she ran up, opened into a little
Speaker 1: courtyard where the fowls were shut in at night. The
Speaker 1: woodhouse and the privy also stood There. On the far
Speaker 1: side of it from the garden gate were two large
Speaker 1: wooden doors, big enough when open to let a cart enter,
Speaker 1: and high enough to keep a man from looking over
Speaker 1: into the yard. When mister Tubrick got into the yard,
Speaker 1: he found his vixen leaping up at these doors, and
Speaker 1: wild with turret, but as lively as ever he saw
Speaker 1: her in his life. He ran up to her, but
Speaker 1: she shrank away from him and would baner dodged him too,
Speaker 1: but he caught hold of her. She bared her teeth
Speaker 1: at him, but he paid no heed to that, only
Speaker 1: picked her straight up into his arms and took her
Speaker 1: so indoors. Yet all the while he could scarce believe
Speaker 1: his eyes to see her living, and felt her all
Speaker 1: over very carefully to find if she had not some
Speaker 1: bones broken. But no, he could find none. Indeed, it
Speaker 1: was some hours before this poor silly gentleman began to
Speaker 1: suspect the truth which was that his vixen had practiced
Speaker 1: a deception upon him, and all the time he was
Speaker 1: bemoaning his loss in such heartrending terms, she was only
Speaker 1: shamming death to run away directly. She was able if
Speaker 1: it had not been that the yard gates were shut,
Speaker 1: which was a mere chance. She had got her liberty
Speaker 1: by that trick. And that this was only a trick
Speaker 1: of hers to sham dead was plain when he had
Speaker 1: thought it over. Indeed, it is an old and time
Speaker 1: honored trick of the fox. It is in Esop, and
Speaker 1: a hundred other writers have confirmed it since. But so
Speaker 1: thoroughly had he been deceived by her that at first
Speaker 1: he was as much overcome with joy at his wife's
Speaker 1: still being alive as he had been with grief a
Speaker 1: little while before, thinking her dead. He took her in
Speaker 1: his arms, hugging her to him and thanking God a
Speaker 1: dozen times for her preservation. But his kissing and fondling
Speaker 1: her had very little effect now, for she did not
Speaker 1: answer him by licking or soft looks, but stayed huddled
Speaker 1: up and sullen, with her hair bristling on her neck
Speaker 1: and her ears laid back. Every time he touched her.
Speaker 1: At he thought this might be because he had touched
Speaker 1: some broken bone or tender place where she had been hurt.
Speaker 1: But at last the truth came to him. Thus he
Speaker 1: was again to suffer. And though the pain of knowing
Speaker 1: her treachery to him was nothing to the grief of
Speaker 1: losing her, yet it was more insidious and lasting. At first.
Speaker 1: From a mere nothing, this pain grew gradually until it
Speaker 1: was a torture to him. If he had been one
Speaker 1: of your stock ordinary husbands, such a one who by
Speaker 1: experience has learnt never to inquire too closely into his
Speaker 1: wife's doings, her comings, or goings, and never to ask
Speaker 1: her how she has spent the day, for fear he
Speaker 1: should be made the more of a fool. Had missed
Speaker 1: her to break been such a one, he had been luckier,
Speaker 1: and his pain would have been almost nothing. But you
Speaker 1: must consider that he had never been deceived once by
Speaker 1: his wife in the course of their married life. No,
Speaker 1: she had never told him as much as one white lie,
Speaker 1: but had always been frank, open and ingenuous, as if
Speaker 1: she and her husband were not husband and wife, or
Speaker 1: indeed of opposite sexes. Yet we must rate him as
Speaker 1: very foolish that living thus with the fox, which beast
Speaker 1: has the same reputation for deceitfulness, crowd and cunning in
Speaker 1: all countries, all ages, and amongst all races of mankind.
Speaker 1: He should expect this fox to be as candid and
Speaker 1: honest with him in all things as the country girl
Speaker 1: he had married. His wife's sullenness and bad temper continued
Speaker 1: that day, for she cowered away from him and hid
Speaker 1: under the sofa. Nor could he persuade her to come
Speaker 1: out from there, even when it was her dinner time.
Speaker 1: She stayed, refusing resolutely to be tempted out with food,
Speaker 1: and lying so quiet that he heard nothing from her
Speaker 1: for hours. At night, he carried her up to the bedroom,
Speaker 1: but she was still sullen and refused to eat a morsel,
Speaker 1: though she drank a little water during the night when
Speaker 1: she fancied he was asleep and of Part five, Part
Speaker 1: six of Lady into Fox by David Garnet. This LibriVox
Speaker 1: recording is in the public domain recording by Tony Addison.
Speaker 1: The next morning was the same, and by now mister
Speaker 1: Tubrick had been through all the agonies of wounded self esteem, disillusionment,
Speaker 1: and despair that a man can suffer, but though his
Speaker 1: emotions rose up in his heart and nearly stifled him,
Speaker 1: he showed no sign of them to her. Neither did
Speaker 1: he abate one jot his tenderness and consideration for his vixen.
Speaker 1: At breakfast he tempted her with a freshly killed young bullet.
Speaker 1: It hurt him to make this advance to her, for
Speaker 1: hitherto he had kept her strictly uncooked meats. But the
Speaker 1: pain of seeing her refuse it was harder still for
Speaker 1: him to bear. Added to this was now an anxiety
Speaker 1: lest she should stop herself to death rather than stay
Speaker 1: with him any longer. All that morning he kept her close,
Speaker 1: but in the afternoon let her loose again in the garden,
Speaker 1: after he had locked the pear tree so that she
Speaker 1: could not repeat her performance of climbing, But seeing how
Speaker 1: disgustedly she looked while he was by, never offering to
Speaker 1: run or to play as she was used, but only
Speaker 1: standing stuck still with her tail between her legs, her
Speaker 1: ears flattened, and the hair bristling on her shoulders. Seeing this,
Speaker 1: he left her to herself out of mere humanity. When
Speaker 1: he came out after half an hour, he found that
Speaker 1: she was gone, but there was a fair sized hole
Speaker 1: by the wall, and she just buried all but her brush,
Speaker 1: digging desperately to get under the wall and make her escape.
Speaker 1: He ran up to the hall and put his arm
Speaker 1: in after her and called her to come out, but
Speaker 1: she would not, so at first he began pulling around
Speaker 1: by the shoulder, then his hold slipping by the hind legs.
Speaker 1: As soon as he had drawn her forth, she whipped
Speaker 1: round and snapped at his hand and bit it through
Speaker 1: near the joint of the thumb, but let it go instantly.
Speaker 1: They stayed there for a minute, facing each other, he
Speaker 1: on his knees and she facing him, the picture of
Speaker 1: unrepentant wickedness and fury. Being thus on his knees, mister
Speaker 1: Tubrick was down on her level very nearly, and her
Speaker 1: muzzle was thrust almost into his face. Her ears lay
Speaker 1: flat on her head, her gums were bared in a
Speaker 1: silent snarl, and all her beautiful teeth threatening him that
Speaker 1: she would bite him again. Her back, too was half arched,
Speaker 1: all her hair bristling, and her rush held drooping. But
Speaker 1: it was her eyes that held his, with their slip pupils,
Speaker 1: looking at him with savage desperation and rage. The blood
Speaker 1: ran very freely from his hand, but he never noticed
Speaker 1: that or the pain of it either, for all his
Speaker 1: thoughts were for his wife. What is this, Soviet? He said,
Speaker 1: very quietly, what is this? Why are you so savage? Now?
Speaker 1: If I stand between you and your freedom, it is
Speaker 1: because I love you? Is it such a torment to
Speaker 1: be with me? But Soviet never stirred a muscle. You
Speaker 1: would not do this if you are not in anguish,
Speaker 1: poor beast, you want your freedom. I cannot keep you.
Speaker 1: I cannot hold you to vows made when you were
Speaker 1: a woman. Why you have forgotten who I am. The
Speaker 1: tears then began running down his cheeks. He sobbed and
Speaker 1: said to her, go, I shall not keep you, poor beast,
Speaker 1: poor beast, I love you, I love you. Go if
Speaker 1: you want to, but if you remember me, come back.
Speaker 1: I shall never keep you against your will. Go go,
Speaker 1: but kiss me now. He leaned forward then and put
Speaker 1: his lips to her snarling fangs. But though she kept snarling,
Speaker 1: she did not bite him. Then he got up quickly
Speaker 1: and went to the door of the garden that opened
Speaker 1: into a little paddock against a wood. When he opened it,
Speaker 1: she went through it like an arrow crusted the paddock
Speaker 1: like a puff of smoke, and in a moment was
Speaker 1: gone from his sight. Then, suddenly finding himself alone, mister
Speaker 1: t Brick came, as it were, to himself, and ran
Speaker 1: after her, calling her by name and shouting to her.
Speaker 1: And so went plunging into the wood and through it
Speaker 1: for about a mile, running almost blindly. At last, when
Speaker 1: he was worn out, he sat down, seeing that she
Speaker 1: had gone beyond recover it, and it was already night.
Speaker 1: Then rising, he walked slowly homewards, wearied and spent in spirit.
Speaker 1: As he went, he bound up his hand that was
Speaker 1: still running with blood. His coat was torn, his hat lost,
Speaker 1: and his face scratched right across with briars. Now in
Speaker 1: cold blood, he began to reflect on what he had done,
Speaker 1: and to repent bitterly. Having set his wife free, he
Speaker 1: had betrayed her, so that now from his act she
Speaker 1: must lead the life of a wild fox for ever,
Speaker 1: and must undergo all the riggers and hardships of the climate,
Speaker 1: and all the hazards of a hunted creature. When mister
Speaker 1: t Brick got back to the cottage, he found missus
Speaker 1: Cork was sitting up for him. It was already late.
Speaker 1: What have you done with missus? To brick, sir, I'm
Speaker 1: mister and I missed you, and I have not known
Speaker 1: what to do, expecting something dreadful that happened. I have
Speaker 1: been sitting up for you half the night. And where
Speaker 1: is she now, sir? She accosted him so vigorously that
Speaker 1: mister de Brick stood silent at length. He said, I
Speaker 1: have let her go. She has run away. Poor miss Solviet,
Speaker 1: cried the old woman, poor creature. You ought to be ashamed, sir,
Speaker 1: let her go. Indeed, poor lady, is that the way
Speaker 1: for her husband to talk? It is a disgrace, but
Speaker 1: I saw it coming from the first. The old woman
Speaker 1: was white with furyed. She did not mind what she said,
Speaker 1: but mister de Brick was not listening to her. At
Speaker 1: last he looked at her and saw that she had
Speaker 1: just begun to cry. So he went out of the
Speaker 1: room and up to bed and lay down as he
Speaker 1: was in his clothes, utterly exhausted and felling to a
Speaker 1: dog sleep, starting up every now and then with horror,
Speaker 1: and then falling back with fatigue. It was late when
Speaker 1: he woke up, but cold and roared, and he fell
Speaker 1: cramped in all his limbs. As he lay, he heard
Speaker 1: again the noise which had woken him, the chotting of
Speaker 1: several horses, and the voices of men riding by the house.
Speaker 1: Mister de Brick jumped up and ran to the window,
Speaker 1: and then looked at and the first thing that he
Speaker 1: saw was a gentleman in a pink coat riding at
Speaker 1: a walk down the lane. At this sight, mister to
Speaker 1: Brick waited no longer, but, pulling on his boots in
Speaker 1: mad haste, ran out instantly, meaning to say that they
Speaker 1: must not hunt, and how his wife was escaped and
Speaker 1: they might kill her. But when he found himself outside
Speaker 1: the cottage, words failed him, and fury took possession of him,
Speaker 1: so that he could only cry out, how dare you
Speaker 1: you dumn blackguard? And so with a stick in his hand,
Speaker 1: he threw himself on the gentleman in the pink coat,
Speaker 1: and seized his horse's rein, and catching the gentleman by
Speaker 1: the leg, was trying to throw him. But really it
Speaker 1: is impossible to say what mister Tubrick intended by his behavior,
Speaker 1: or what he would have done for the gentleman, finding
Speaker 1: himself suddenly assaulted in so unexpected a fashion by so strange.
Speaker 1: A tousled and disheveled figure clubbed his hunting crop and
Speaker 1: dealt him a blow on the temple, so that he
Speaker 1: fell insensible. Another gentleman rode up at this moment, and
Speaker 1: they were civil enough to dismount and carry mister to
Speaker 1: Brick into the cottage, where they were met by old Nanny,
Speaker 1: who kept bringing her hands and told them mister to
Speaker 1: Brick's wife had run away, and she was a vixen,
Speaker 1: and that was the cause that mister de Brick had
Speaker 1: run out and assaulted them. The two gentlemen could not
Speaker 1: help laughing at this, and mounting their horses, rode on
Speaker 1: without delay, after telling each other that mister to Brigg,
Speaker 1: whoever he was, who, was certainly a madman, and the
Speaker 1: old woman seemed as mad as her master. This story, however,
Speaker 1: went the rounds of the gentry in those parts, and
Speaker 1: perfectly confirmed every one in their previous opinion, namely that
Speaker 1: mister to Brick was mad and his wife had run
Speaker 1: away from him. The part about her being a vixen
Speaker 1: was laughed at by the few that heard it, but
Speaker 1: was soon left out as immaterial to the story, and
Speaker 1: incredible in itself, though afterwards it came to be remembered
Speaker 1: and its significance to be understood. When mister Tubrigg came
Speaker 1: to himself, it was past noon, and his head was
Speaker 1: aching so painfully that he could only call to mind
Speaker 1: in a confused way what had happened. However, he sent
Speaker 1: off missus Cook's son directly on one of his horses,
Speaker 1: to inquire about the hunt. At the same time he
Speaker 1: gave orders to Old Nanny that she was to put
Speaker 1: out food and water for her mistress, on the chance
Speaker 1: that she might yet be in the neighborhood. By nightfall,
Speaker 1: Simon was back with the news that the hunt had
Speaker 1: had a very long run, but had lost one fox.
Speaker 1: Then drawing a covert had chopped an old dog fox,
Speaker 1: and so ended the day's sport. This put mister Tebrick
Speaker 1: in some hopes again, and he arose at once from
Speaker 1: his bed and went out to the wood and began
Speaker 1: calling his wife, but was overcome with faintness and lay down,
Speaker 1: and so passed the night in the open from mere weakness.
Speaker 1: In the morning he got back again to the cottage,
Speaker 1: but he had taken a chill and so had to
Speaker 1: keep his bed for three or four days. After all
Speaker 1: this time he had food put out for her every night,
Speaker 1: but though rats came to it and ate of it,
Speaker 1: there were never any prints of a fox. At last,
Speaker 1: his anxiety began working another wad. That is, he came
Speaker 1: to think it possible that his vixen would have gone
Speaker 1: back to Stokoe. So he had his horses harnessed in
Speaker 1: the dog ca and brought to the door, and then
Speaker 1: drove over to Rylands, though we were still in a
Speaker 1: fever and with a heavy cold upon him. After that
Speaker 1: he lived always solitary, keeping away from his follows, and
Speaker 1: only seeing one man called Ascut, who had been brought
Speaker 1: up a jockey at Wantage, but was grown too big
Speaker 1: for his profession. He mounted this loping follow on one
Speaker 1: of his horses three days a week, and had him
Speaker 1: follow the hunt and report to him whenever they killed.
Speaker 1: And if he could view the fox, so much the better.
Speaker 1: And then he made him describe it minutely, so we
Speaker 1: should know if it were his Sylviet. But he dared
Speaker 1: not trust himself to go himself, lest his passion should
Speaker 1: master him and he might commit a murder. Every time
Speaker 1: there was a hunt in the neighborhood. He set the
Speaker 1: gates wide open at Ryland's and the house doors also,
Speaker 1: and taking his gun, stood sentinel in the hope that
Speaker 1: his wife would run in if she were pressed by
Speaker 1: the hands, and so he could save her. But only
Speaker 1: once aunt came near, when two foxhounds that had lost
Speaker 1: the main pack strayed on to his land, and he
Speaker 1: shot them instantly and buried them afterwards himself. It was
Speaker 1: not long now to the end of the season, as
Speaker 1: it was the middle of March. But living as he
Speaker 1: did at this time, mister Tebrigg grew more and more
Speaker 1: to be a true misanthrope. He denied admittance to any
Speaker 1: that came to visit him, and rarely showed himself to
Speaker 1: his fellows, but went out cheaply in the early mornings
Speaker 1: before people were about, in the hope of seeing his
Speaker 1: beloved fox. Indeed, it was only this hope that he
Speaker 1: would see again that kept him alive, for he had
Speaker 1: become so careless of his own comfort in every way
Speaker 1: that he very seldom at a proper meal, taking no
Speaker 1: more than a crust of bread with a morsel of
Speaker 1: cheese in the whole day, though sometimes he would drink
Speaker 1: half a bottle of whiskey to drown his sorrow, and
Speaker 1: to get off to sleep. For sleep fled from him,
Speaker 1: and no sooner did he begin dozing, but he awoke
Speaker 1: with a start, thinking he had hurt something. He let
Speaker 1: his beard grow too, and though he had always been
Speaker 1: very particular in his person before, he now was utterly
Speaker 1: careless of it. Gave up washing himself a week or
Speaker 1: two at a stretch, and if there was dirt under
Speaker 1: his fingernails, let it stay there. All this disorder fed
Speaker 1: a malignant pleasure in him, for by now he had
Speaker 1: come to hate his men, and was embittered against all
Speaker 1: human decences under Korum. For strange to tell, he never
Speaker 1: once in these months regretted his dear wife, whom he
Speaker 1: had so much loved. No, all that he grieved for
Speaker 1: now was his departed vixen. He was haunted all this
Speaker 1: time not by the memory of a sweet and gentle woman,
Speaker 1: but by the recollection of an animal. A beast. It
Speaker 1: is true that could sit at table and play pique
Speaker 1: when it would, But for all that nothing really but
Speaker 1: a wild beast. His one hope now was the recovery
Speaker 1: of this beast, and of this he dreamed continually. Likewise,
Speaker 1: both waking and sleeping, he was visited by visions of her,
Speaker 1: Her masts, her full white tag, brushed white throat, and
Speaker 1: the thick fur in her ears all haunted him. Every
Speaker 1: one of her foxy ways was now so absolutely precious
Speaker 1: to him that I believe that if he had known
Speaker 1: for certain she was dead, and had thoughts of marrying
Speaker 1: a second time, he would never have been happy with
Speaker 1: a woman. No, Indeed, he would have been more tempted
Speaker 1: to get himself at tame fox, and would have counted
Speaker 1: that as good a marriage as he could make. Yet
Speaker 1: this all proceeded, one may say, from a passion and
Speaker 1: a true conjugal fidelity, that it would be hard to
Speaker 1: find matched in this world. And though we may think
Speaker 1: him a fool, almost a madman, we must, when we
Speaker 1: look closer, find much to respect in his extraordinary devotion.
Speaker 1: How different indeed was he from those who, if their
Speaker 1: wives go mad, shut them in mad houses and give
Speaker 1: themselves up to concubinage. And nay, what is more, there
Speaker 1: are many who extenuate such conduct too. But mister Tubrick
Speaker 1: was of a very different temper. And though his wife
Speaker 1: was now nothing but a hunted beast, cared for no
Speaker 1: one in the world but heard but this devouring love
Speaker 1: ate into him like a consumption, so that, by sleepless
Speaker 1: nights and not caring for his person, in a few
Speaker 1: months he was worn to the shadow of himself. His
Speaker 1: cheeks were sunk in, his eyes hollow but excessively brilliant,
Speaker 1: and his whole body had lost flesh, so that looking
Speaker 1: at him, the wonder was that he was still alive.
Speaker 1: Now that the hunting season was over, he had less
Speaker 1: anxiety for her. Yet even so he was not positive
Speaker 1: that the hands had not got her. For between the
Speaker 1: time of his setting her free and the end of
Speaker 1: the hunting season just up Easter, there were but three
Speaker 1: vixens killed near Of those three, one was a half
Speaker 1: blind or war eyed, and one was a very gray,
Speaker 1: dull colored beast. The third answered more to the description
Speaker 1: of his wife, but that it had not much black
Speaker 1: on the legs, whereas in her the blackness of the
Speaker 1: legs was very plain to be noticed. But yet his
Speaker 1: fear made him think that perhaps she had got mired
Speaker 1: in running, and the legs, being muddied, were not remarked
Speaker 1: on as black. One morning, the first week in May,
Speaker 1: about four o'clock, when he was out waiting in the
Speaker 1: little cups, he sat down for a while on a
Speaker 1: tree stump, and when he looked up, saw a fox
Speaker 1: coming towards him over the plowed field. It was carrying
Speaker 1: a hare over its shoulder, so that it was nearly
Speaker 1: all hidden from him. At last, when it was not
Speaker 1: twenty yards from him, it crossed over, going into the cubs.
Speaker 1: When mister to Brick stood up and cried out, Sylvia, Sylvia,
Speaker 1: is it you? The fox dropped the hair out of
Speaker 1: his mouth and stood looking at him. And then our
Speaker 1: gentleman saw at the first glance that this was not
Speaker 1: his wife. For whereas missus de Brick had been a
Speaker 1: very bright red, this was a swarthy, a duller beast. Altogether. Moreover,
Speaker 1: it was a good deal larger and higher at the shoulder,
Speaker 1: and had a great white tag to his brush. But
Speaker 1: the fox, after the first instant, did not stand for
Speaker 1: his portrait, you may be sure, but picked up his
Speaker 1: hair and made off like an arrow. Then mister t
Speaker 1: Brick cried out to himself, indeed, I am crazy now.
Speaker 1: My affliction has made me lose what little reason I
Speaker 1: ever had here am I taking every box I see
Speaker 1: to be my wife. My neighbors call me a madman,
Speaker 1: and now I see that they are right. Look at
Speaker 1: me now, Oh God, how foul a creature I am.
Speaker 1: I hate my fellows, and thin and wasted by this
Speaker 1: consuming passion. My reason is gone, and I feed myself
Speaker 1: on dreams. Recall me to my duty, Bring me back
Speaker 1: to decency. Let me not become a beast likewise, but
Speaker 1: restore me and forgive me O my Lord. With that,
Speaker 1: he burst into scolding tears and knelt down and prayed,
Speaker 1: a thing he had not done for many weeks. When
Speaker 1: he rose up, he walked back, feeling giddy and exceedingly weak,
Speaker 1: but with a contrite heart, and then washed himself thoroughly
Speaker 1: and changed his clothes. But his weakness increasing, he lay
Speaker 1: down for the rest of the day, but read in
Speaker 1: the Book of Job and was much comforted and of
Speaker 1: Part six Part seven of Lady Interfox by David Garnet.
Speaker 1: This librevox recording is in the public domain recording by
Speaker 1: Tony Addison. For several days after this he lived very soberly,
Speaker 1: for his weakness continued, but every day he read in
Speaker 1: the Bible and prayed earnestly, so that his resolution was
Speaker 1: so much strengthened that he determined to overcome his police
Speaker 1: or his passion, if he could, and at any rate,
Speaker 1: to live the rest of his life very religiously. So
Speaker 1: strong was this desiring him to amend his ways, that
Speaker 1: he considered if he should not go to spread the
Speaker 1: gospel abroad for the Bible society, and so spent the
Speaker 1: rest of his days. Indeed, he began a letter to
Speaker 1: his wife's uncle, the Cannon, and he was writing this
Speaker 1: when he was startled by hearing a fox bark. Yet
Speaker 1: so great was this new turn he had taken that
Speaker 1: he did not rush out at once, as he would
Speaker 1: have done before, but stayed where he was and finished
Speaker 1: his letter. Afterwards, he said to himself that it was
Speaker 1: only a wild fox and sent by the devil to
Speaker 1: mock him, and that madness lay that way if he
Speaker 1: should listen. But on the other hand, he could not
Speaker 1: deny to himself that it might have been his wife,
Speaker 1: and that he ought to welcome the prodigal. Thus he
Speaker 1: was torn between these two thoughts, neither of which did
Speaker 1: he completely believe. He stayed thus, tormented with doubts and
Speaker 1: fears all night. The next morning, he woke suddenly with
Speaker 1: a start, and on the instant heard a fox bark
Speaker 1: once more. At that, he pulled on his clothes and
Speaker 1: ran out as fast as he could to the garden gate.
Speaker 1: The sun was not yet high, the dew thick everywhere,
Speaker 1: and for a minute or two ever, a thing was
Speaker 1: very silent. He looked about him eagerly, but could see
Speaker 1: no fox. Yet there was already joy in his heart. Then,
Speaker 1: while he looked up and down the road, he saw
Speaker 1: his vixen step out of the cops about thirty yards away.
Speaker 1: He called to her at once, my dearest wife, Oh Sylvia,
Speaker 1: you are come back. And at the sound of his
Speaker 1: voice he saw her wag her tail, which set his
Speaker 1: last dad's address. But then, though he called her again,
Speaker 1: she stepped into the cops once more, though she looked
Speaker 1: back at him over her shoulder as she went. At this,
Speaker 1: he ran after her, but softly and not too fast
Speaker 1: lest he should frighten her away, and then looked about
Speaker 1: her again and called to her. When he saw her
Speaker 1: among the trees, still keeping her distance from him. He
Speaker 1: followed her then, and as he approached so she retreated
Speaker 1: from him. Yet always looking back at him. Several times
Speaker 1: he followed after her through the underwood at the side
Speaker 1: of the hill, when suddenly she disappeared from his sight
Speaker 1: behind some bracken. When he got there, he could see
Speaker 1: her nowhere, but looking about him, found a fox's earth,
Speaker 1: but so well hidden that he might have passed it
Speaker 1: by a thousand times and would never have found it.
Speaker 1: And as she had made particular search at that spot.
Speaker 1: But now though he went on his hands and knees,
Speaker 1: he could see nothing of his vex, so that he
Speaker 1: waited a little while wondering. Presently, he heard a noise
Speaker 1: of something moving in the earth, and so waited silently,
Speaker 1: then saw something which pushed itself into sight. It was
Speaker 1: a small, stooty black beast, like a puppy. There came
Speaker 1: another behind it, then another, and so on till there
Speaker 1: were five of them. Lastly there came his vixen, pushing
Speaker 1: her litter before her, And while he looked at hers silently,
Speaker 1: a prey to his confused and unhappy emotions, he saw
Speaker 1: that her eyes were shining with pride and happiness. She
Speaker 1: picked up one of her youngsters then in her mouth,
Speaker 1: and brought it to him, and laid it in front
Speaker 1: of him, and then looked up at him, very excited,
Speaker 1: or so it seemed. Mister Tubrick took the cub in
Speaker 1: his hands, stroked it, and put it against his cheek.
Speaker 1: It was a little followed with a smutty face and paws,
Speaker 1: with staring, vacant eyes of a brilliant electric blue, and
Speaker 1: a little tail like a carrot. When he was put down,
Speaker 1: he took a step towards his mother, and then sat
Speaker 1: down very comically. Mister Tubrick looked at his wife again
Speaker 1: and spoke to her, calling her a good creature. Already
Speaker 1: he was resigned, and now indeed, for the first time
Speaker 1: he thoroughly understood what had happened to her, and how
Speaker 1: far apart they were now. But looking first at one cub,
Speaker 1: then at another, and having them sprawling over his lap,
Speaker 1: he forgot himself only watching the pretty scene and taking
Speaker 1: pleasure in it. Now and then he would stroke his
Speaker 1: vixen and kiss it, liberties which she freely allowed him.
Speaker 1: Marveled more than ever now at her beauty, for her
Speaker 1: gentleness with the cubs, and the extreme delight she took
Speaker 1: in them seemed to him then to make her more
Speaker 1: lovely than before. Thus, lying amongst them at the mouth
Speaker 1: of the earth, he idled away the whole of the morning.
Speaker 1: First he would play with one, then with another, rolling
Speaker 1: them over and tickling them. But they were too young
Speaker 1: yet to lend themselves to any other more active sport
Speaker 1: than this. Every now and then he would stroke his
Speaker 1: vixen or look at it, And thus the time slept
Speaker 1: away quite fast, and he was surprised when she gathered
Speaker 1: her cubs together and pushed them before her into the earth, then,
Speaker 1: coming back to him once or twice, very humanly bid
Speaker 1: him good bye, and that she hoped she would see
Speaker 1: him soon again. Now he had found out the way.
Speaker 1: So admirably did she express her meaning that it would
Speaker 1: have been superfluous for her to have spoken had she
Speaker 1: been able. And mister t Brigg, who was used to her,
Speaker 1: got up at once and went home. But now that
Speaker 1: he was alone, all the feelings which he had not
Speaker 1: troubled himself with when he was withered, but had, as
Speaker 1: it were, put a side till after his innocent pleasures
Speaker 1: were over all these came swarming back to assail him
Speaker 1: in a hundred tormenting ways. Firstly, he asked himself was
Speaker 1: not his wife unfaithful to him. Had she not prostituted
Speaker 1: herself to a beast, could he still love her after that?
Speaker 1: But this did not trouble him so much as it
Speaker 1: might have done, for now he was convinced inwardly that
Speaker 1: she could no longer, in fairness, be judged as a woman,
Speaker 1: but as a fox only. And as a fox she
Speaker 1: had done no more than other foxes. Indeed, in having
Speaker 1: cubs and tending them with love, she had done well.
Speaker 1: Whether in this conclusion mister t Brick was in the
Speaker 1: right or not is not for us here to consider.
Speaker 1: But I would only say to those who would censure
Speaker 1: him for a too lenient view of the religious side
Speaker 1: of the matter, that we have not seen the thing
Speaker 1: as he did, and perhaps if it were displayed before
Speaker 1: our eyes, we might be led to the same conclusions.
Speaker 1: This was, however, not a tenth part of the trouble
Speaker 1: in which mister to Brick found himself, For he asked himself, also,
Speaker 1: was he not jealous? And looking into his heart, he
Speaker 1: found that he was indeed jealous, yes, and angry too,
Speaker 1: that now he must share his bixs and with wild foxes.
Speaker 1: Then he questioned himself if it were not dishonorable to
Speaker 1: do so, and whether he should not utterly forget her
Speaker 1: and follow his original intention of retiring from the world
Speaker 1: and see her no more. Thus he tormented himself for
Speaker 1: the rest of that day, and by evening he had
Speaker 1: resolved never to see her again. But in the middle
Speaker 1: of the night he woke up with his head very clear,
Speaker 1: and said to himself in wonder, am I not a madman?
Speaker 1: I torment myself foolishly with fantastic notions? Can a man
Speaker 1: have his honor solid by a beast? I am a man.
Speaker 1: I am immeasurably superior to the animals. Can my dignity
Speaker 1: allow of my being jealous of a beast? A thousand times?
Speaker 1: No were I to lust after a vixen I were
Speaker 1: a criminal. Indeed, I can be happy in seeing my vixen,
Speaker 1: for I love her, But she does right to be
Speaker 1: happy according to the laws of her being. Lastly, he
Speaker 1: said to himself, what was he felt the truth of
Speaker 1: this whole matter? When I am with her, I am happy.
Speaker 1: But now I distort what is simple and drive myself
Speaker 1: crazy with false reasoning upon it. Yet, before he stepped again,
Speaker 1: he prayed, But though he had thought first to pray
Speaker 1: for guidance. In reality, he prayed only that on the
Speaker 1: morrow he would see his vixen again, and that God
Speaker 1: would preserve her and her cubs too from all dangers,
Speaker 1: and would allow him to see them often, so that
Speaker 1: he might come to love them for her sake, as
Speaker 1: if he were their father, and that if this were
Speaker 1: a sin, he might be forgiven, for he sinned in ignorance.
Speaker 1: The next day or two he saw Vixen and cubs again,
Speaker 1: though his busin were cut shorter, and these visits gave
Speaker 1: him such an innocent pleasure that very soon his notions
Speaker 1: of honor, duty, and so on were entirely forgotten, and
Speaker 1: his jealousy lulled asleep. One day he tried taking with
Speaker 1: him the studioscope and a pack of cards. But though
Speaker 1: his Sylviet was affectionate and amiable enough to let him
Speaker 1: put the stuioscope over her muzzle, yet she would not
Speaker 1: look through it, but kept turning her head to licky
Speaker 1: his hand, and it was plain to him that now
Speaker 1: she had quite forgotten the use of the instrument. It
Speaker 1: was the same too with the cards, for with them
Speaker 1: she was pleased enough. But only delighting to bite at
Speaker 1: them and put them about with her paws, and never
Speaker 1: considering for a moment whether they were diamonds or clubs,
Speaker 1: or hearts or spades, or whether the card an ace
Speaker 1: or not. So it was evident that she had forgotten
Speaker 1: the nature of cards too. Thereafter he only brought them
Speaker 1: things which he could better enjoy, that is, sugar, grapes, raisins,
Speaker 1: and butcher's meat. By and by, as the summer wore on,
Speaker 1: the cubs came to know him, and he then so
Speaker 1: that he was able to tell them easily apart. And
Speaker 1: then he christened them. For this purpose, he brought a
Speaker 1: little bowl of water a sprinkled them as if in baptism,
Speaker 1: and told them he was their godfather, and gave each
Speaker 1: of them a name, calling them Sorrel, Casper, Selwyn, esther
Speaker 1: and Angellicut. The Sorrel was a clumsy little beast, of
Speaker 1: a cheery and indeed puppyish disposition. Casper was fierce the
Speaker 1: largest of the five. Even in his play, he would
Speaker 1: always bite and gave his godfather many a sharp nip
Speaker 1: as time went on. Esther Oa was of a dark complexion,
Speaker 1: a true brunette, and very sturdy, Angelica the brightest red
Speaker 1: and the most exactly like her mother, while Sulwyn was
Speaker 1: the smallest cub of a very praying, inquisitive and cunning temper,
Speaker 1: but delicate and undersized. Thus mister Tebrick had a whole
Speaker 1: family now to occupy him, and indeed it came to
Speaker 1: love them with very much of a father's love and partiality.
Speaker 1: His favorite was Angelica, who reminded him so much of
Speaker 1: her mother in her pretty ways, because of a gentleness
Speaker 1: which was lacking in the others, even in their play.
Speaker 1: After her in his affections came Selwyn, whom he soon
Speaker 1: saw was the most intelligent of the whole litter. Indeed,
Speaker 1: he was so much more quick witted than the rest
Speaker 1: that mister de Brick was led into speculating as to
Speaker 1: whether he had not inherited something of the human from
Speaker 1: his damn. Thus, very early he learnt to know his
Speaker 1: name and would come when he was called. And what
Speaker 1: was stranger still, he learned the names of his brothers
Speaker 1: and sisters before they came to do so themselves. Besides
Speaker 1: all this, he was something of a young philosopher, for
Speaker 1: though his brother Kasper tyrannized over him. He put up
Speaker 1: with it all with an unruffled temper. He was not, however,
Speaker 1: above playing tricks on the others, and wondered when mister
Speaker 1: t Brick was by, he made believe that there was
Speaker 1: a mouse in a hole some little way off. Very
Speaker 1: soon he was joined by Sorrow, and presently by Kasper
Speaker 1: and Esther. When he had got them all digging, it
Speaker 1: was easy for him to step away, And then he
Speaker 1: came to his godfather with a sly look, sat down
Speaker 1: before him and smiled, and then jerked his head over
Speaker 1: towards the others, and smiled again, and wrinkled his brows,
Speaker 1: so that mister de Brick knew as well as if
Speaker 1: he had spoken, that the youngster was saying, have I
Speaker 1: not made fools of them all? He was the only
Speaker 1: one that was curious about mister t Brick. He made
Speaker 1: him take out his watch, put his ear to it,
Speaker 1: considered it, and wrinkled up his brows in perplexity. On
Speaker 1: the next visit it was the same thing. He must
Speaker 1: see the watch again and again think over it. But
Speaker 1: clever as he was, little Selwyn could never understand it.
Speaker 1: And if his mother remembered any thing about watches. It
Speaker 1: was a subject which she never attempted to explain to
Speaker 1: her children. One day, mister to Brick left the earth
Speaker 1: as usual and ran down the slope to the road,
Speaker 1: when he was surprised to find a carriage waiting before
Speaker 1: his house and a coachman walking about near his gate.
Speaker 1: Mister de Brick went in and found that his visitor
Speaker 1: was waiting for him. It was his wife's uncle. They
Speaker 1: shook hands, though the Reverend canon Fox did not recognize
Speaker 1: him immediately, and mister to Brick led him into the house.
Speaker 1: The clergyman looked about him a good deal at the
Speaker 1: dirty and disorderly rooms, and when mister to Brick took
Speaker 1: him into the drawing room, it was evident that it
Speaker 1: had been unused for several months. The dust lay so
Speaker 1: thickly on all the furniture. After some conversation on indifferent topics,
Speaker 1: canon Fox said to him, I have called really to
Speaker 1: ask about my niece. Mister de Brick was silent for
Speaker 1: some time, and then said, she is quite happy now. Ah. Indeed,
Speaker 1: I have heard she is not living with you any longer. No,
Speaker 1: she is not living with me. She is not far away.
Speaker 1: I see her every day. Now, indeed, where does she
Speaker 1: live in the woods with her children? I ought to
Speaker 1: tell you that she has changed her shape. She is
Speaker 1: a fox. The Reverend Canon Fox got up. He was alarmed,
Speaker 1: and everything mister Brick said confirmed what he had been
Speaker 1: led to expect he would find at Ryland's. When he
Speaker 1: was outside, however, he asked, mister de Brigg, you don't
Speaker 1: have many visitors now, eh No, I never see anyone
Speaker 1: if I can avoid it. You are the first person
Speaker 1: I've spoken to for months. Quite right, too, my dear Bollow,
Speaker 1: I quite understand in the circumstances. Then the cleric shook
Speaker 1: him by the hand, got into his carriage and drove away.
Speaker 1: At any rate, He said to himself, there will be
Speaker 1: no scandal. He was relieved also because mister to Brick
Speaker 1: had said nothing about going abroad to disseminate the gospel.
Speaker 1: Canon Fox had been alarmed by the letter, had not
Speaker 1: answered it, and thought that it was always better to
Speaker 1: let things be and never to refer to anything unpleasant.
Speaker 1: He did not at all want to recommend mister to
Speaker 1: Brick to the Bible Society. If he were mad, his
Speaker 1: eccentricities would never be noticed. At Stokoe, besides that mister
Speaker 1: de Brick had said he was happy. He was sorry
Speaker 1: for mister Brick too, and he said to himself that
Speaker 1: the queer girl, his niece, must have married him, because
Speaker 1: he was the first man she had met. He reflected
Speaker 1: also that he was never likely to see her again,
Speaker 1: and said a lad when he had driven some little way.
Speaker 1: Not an affectionate disposition, then to his coachman, no, that's
Speaker 1: all right, drive on, Hopkins. When mister Tebrick was alone,
Speaker 1: he rejoiced exceedingly. In his solitary life. He understood, or
Speaker 1: so he fancied, what it was to be happy, and
Speaker 1: that he had found complete happiness now, living from day
Speaker 1: to day, careless of the future, surrounded every morning by
Speaker 1: playful and affectionate little creatures whom he loved tenderly, and
Speaker 1: sitting beside their mother, whose simple happiness was the source
Speaker 1: of his own. True happiness, he said to himself, is
Speaker 1: to be found in bestowing love. There is no such
Speaker 1: happiness as that of the mother for her babe, and
Speaker 1: as I have attained it in mind for my vixen
Speaker 1: and her children. With these feelings, he waited impatiently for
Speaker 1: the hour on the morrow when he might hasten to
Speaker 1: them once more, When, however, he had toiled up the
Speaker 1: hillside to the earth, taking infinite precaution not to tread
Speaker 1: down the bracken or make a beaten path which might
Speaker 1: lead others to that secret spot, he bound, to his
Speaker 1: surprise that Solvia was not there, and that there were
Speaker 1: no cubs to be seen either. He called to them,
Speaker 1: but it was in vain, and at last he laid
Speaker 1: himself on the mossy bank beside the earth and waited.
Speaker 1: And of Part seven, Part eight of Lady into Fox
Speaker 1: by David Garnet. This LibriVox recording is in the public
Speaker 1: domain recording by Tony Addison. For a long while, as
Speaker 1: it seemed to him, he lay very still with closed eyes,
Speaker 1: straining his ears to hear every rustle among the leaves,
Speaker 1: or any sound that might be the cub stirring in
Speaker 1: the earth. At last he must have dropped asleep, for
Speaker 1: he woke suddenly, with all his senses alert, and opening
Speaker 1: his eyes, found a full grown fox within six feet
Speaker 1: of him, sitting on its haunches like a dog and
Speaker 1: watching his face with curiosity. Mister de Brick saw instantly
Speaker 1: that it was not Soviet when he moved, the fox
Speaker 1: got up and shifted his eyes, but still stood his ground,
Speaker 1: and mister de Brick recognized him then, for the dog
Speaker 1: fox he had seen once before, carrying a head. It
Speaker 1: was the same dark beast with a large white tug
Speaker 1: to his brush. Now the secret was out, and mister
Speaker 1: de Brick could see his rival before him. Here was
Speaker 1: the real father of his godchildren, who could be certain
Speaker 1: of their taking after him and leading over again his
Speaker 1: wild and rakish life. Mister to Brick stared for a
Speaker 1: long time of the handsome rogue, who glanced back at
Speaker 1: him with distrust and watchfulness patent in his face, but
Speaker 1: not with that defiance too, And it seemed to mister
Speaker 1: Tabrick as if there was also a touch of cynical
Speaker 1: humor in his look, as if he said, by Dad,
Speaker 1: we two have been strangely brought together. And to the man,
Speaker 1: at any rate, it seemed strange that they were thus linked,
Speaker 1: And he wondered if the love his rival there bare
Speaker 1: to his vixen and his cubs were the same thing
Speaker 1: in kind as his own. We would both of us
Speaker 1: give our lives for theirs, he said to himself, as
Speaker 1: he reasoned upon it, we both of us are happy
Speaker 1: cheaply in their company. What pride this follow must feel
Speaker 1: to have such a wife and such children taking after him?
Speaker 1: And has he not reason for his pride? He lives
Speaker 1: in a world where he is beset with a thousand dangers.
Speaker 1: For half the year he is hunted every where, dogs
Speaker 1: pursue him, men lay chaps with him, or menace him.
Speaker 1: He owes nothing to another, but he did not speak,
Speaker 1: knowing that his words would only alarm the fox. Then
Speaker 1: in a few minutes he saw the dog fox look
Speaker 1: over his shoulder, and then he trotted off, as likely
Speaker 1: as a gossamer veil blown in the wind. And in
Speaker 1: a minute or two more back he comes, with his
Speaker 1: vixen and the cubs all around him. Seeing the dog
Speaker 1: fox thus surrounded by vixen and cubs was too much
Speaker 1: for mister Tubrick. In spite of all his philosophy, A
Speaker 1: pang of jealousy shot through him. He could see that
Speaker 1: Sylvia had been hunting with her cubs, and also that
Speaker 1: she had forgotten that he would come that morning, for
Speaker 1: she started when she saw him, and though she callously
Speaker 1: licked his hand, he could see that her thoughts were
Speaker 1: not with him. Very soon she led her cubs into
Speaker 1: the earth. The dog fox had vanished, and mister Tubrick
Speaker 1: was again alone. He did not wait longer, but went home.
Speaker 1: Now was his peace of mind all gone, The happiness
Speaker 1: which he had flattered himself the night before. He knew
Speaker 1: so well her to enjoy. It seemed now but a
Speaker 1: fool's paradise in which she had been living a hundred times.
Speaker 1: This poor gentleman bit his lip, drew down his trbous brows,
Speaker 1: and stamped his foot, and cursed himself bitterly or coldest
Speaker 1: lady bitch. He could not forgive himself neither that he
Speaker 1: had not thought of the damned dog fox before, but
Speaker 1: all the while had let the cubs frisk round him,
Speaker 1: each one a proof that a dog box had been
Speaker 1: at work with his vixen. Yes, jealousy was now in
Speaker 1: the wind, and every circumstance which had been a reason
Speaker 1: for his felicity the night before, was now turned into
Speaker 1: a monstrous feature of his nightmare. With all this, mister
Speaker 1: to Brick so worked upon himself that for the time
Speaker 1: being he had lost his reason. Black was white and
Speaker 1: white black, And he was resolved that on the morrow
Speaker 1: he would dig the wild brooder boxes out and shoot them,
Speaker 1: and so free himself at last from this hellish plague.
Speaker 1: All that night he was in this mood and in agony,
Speaker 1: as if he had broken in the crown of a
Speaker 1: tooth and bitten on the nerve. But as all things
Speaker 1: will have an ending, so at last mister t Brick,
Speaker 1: worn out and wearied by this loathed passion jealousy, fell
Speaker 1: into an uneasy, untormented sleep. After an hour or two,
Speaker 1: the procession of confused and jumbled images which first assailed
Speaker 1: him passed away and subsided into one clear and powerful dream.
Speaker 1: His wife was with him, in her own proper shape,
Speaker 1: walking as they had been on that fatal day before
Speaker 1: her transformation. Yet she was changed to for in her
Speaker 1: face there were visible tokens of unhappiness, her face swollen
Speaker 1: with crying, pale and downcast, her hair hanging in disorder,
Speaker 1: her damp hands wringing a small handkerchief into a bow,
Speaker 1: her whole body shaken with sobs, and an air of
Speaker 1: long neglect about her person. Between her sobs, she was
Speaker 1: confessing to him some crime which she had committed. But
Speaker 1: he did not catch the broken words, nor did he
Speaker 1: wish to hear them, for he was dull by his sorrow.
Speaker 1: So they continued walking together in sadness, as it were,
Speaker 1: forever here, with his arm about her waist, she turning
Speaker 1: her head to him and often casting her eyes down
Speaker 1: in distress. At last they sat down, and he spoke, saying,
Speaker 1: I know they are not my children, but I shall
Speaker 1: not use them barbarously. Because of that you are still
Speaker 1: my wife. I swear to you they shall never be neglected.
Speaker 1: I will pay for their education. Then he began turning
Speaker 1: over the names of schools in his mind. Eaton would
Speaker 1: not do, nor Harrow, nor Winchester, nor Rugby. But he
Speaker 1: could not tell why these schools would not do for
Speaker 1: these children of hers. He only knew that every school
Speaker 1: he thought of what impossible, But surely one could be found.
Speaker 1: So turning over the names of schools, he sat for
Speaker 1: a long while, holding his dear wife's hand, till at length,
Speaker 1: still weeping. She got up and went away, And then
Speaker 1: slowly he awoke. But even when he had opened his
Speaker 1: eyes and looked about him, he was thinking of schools,
Speaker 1: saying to himself that he must send them to a
Speaker 1: private academy, or even at the worst engaged a tutor. Why, yes,
Speaker 1: he said to himself, putting one put out of bed.
Speaker 1: That is what it must be, a tutor. Though even
Speaker 1: then there will be a difficulty. At first at those words,
Speaker 1: he wondered what difficulty there would be, and recollected that
Speaker 1: they were not ordinary children. No, they were foxes, mere foxes.
Speaker 1: When poor mister Tubrigg had remembered this, he was, as
Speaker 1: it were, dazed or stunned by the fact, and for
Speaker 1: a long time he could understand nothing, but at last
Speaker 1: burst into a flood of tears, compassionating them and himself too.
Speaker 1: The awfulness of the fact itself that his dear wife
Speaker 1: should have foxes instead of children filled him with an
Speaker 1: agony of pity, and at them. When he recollected the
Speaker 1: cause of their being foxes, that is that his wife
Speaker 1: was a fox also, his tears broke out, and knew
Speaker 1: and he could bear it no longer, but began calling
Speaker 1: out in his anguish, and beat his head once or
Speaker 1: twice against the wall, and then cast himself down on
Speaker 1: his bed again, and wept and wept, sometimes tearing the
Speaker 1: sheets asunder with his teeth the whole of that day,
Speaker 1: For he was not to go to the earth till
Speaker 1: evening he went about sorrowfully, torn by true pity for
Speaker 1: his poor vixen and her chair children. At last, when
Speaker 1: the time came, he went again up to the earth,
Speaker 1: which he found deserted. But hearing his voice, out came Esther.
Speaker 1: But though he called the others by their names, there
Speaker 1: was no answer, and something in the way the cub
Speaker 1: greeted him made him fancy she was indeed alone. She
Speaker 1: was truly rejoiced to see him, and scrambled up into
Speaker 1: his arms and thence to his shoulder, kissing him, which
Speaker 1: was unusual in her, though natural enough in her sister Angelicate.
Speaker 1: He sat down a little way from the earth, fondling her,
Speaker 1: and fed her with some fish she had brought by
Speaker 1: her mother, which she ate so ravenously that he concluded
Speaker 1: she must have been sure to food that day, and
Speaker 1: probably alone for some time. At last, while he was
Speaker 1: sitting there, Esther pricked up, her ears started up, and
Speaker 1: presently mister to Brigg saw his vixen come towards them.
Speaker 1: She greeted him very affectionately, but it was plain had
Speaker 1: not much time to spare, for she soon started back
Speaker 1: when she had come with Esther at her side. When
Speaker 1: they had gone about a rod, the cub hung back
Speaker 1: and kept stopping and looking back to the earth, and
Speaker 1: at last turned and ran back home. But her mother
Speaker 1: was not to be fobbed opso, for she quickly overtook
Speaker 1: her child, and, gripping her by the scrub, began to
Speaker 1: drag her along with her. Mister to Brigg, seeing then
Speaker 1: how mutters stood, spoke to her, telling her he would
Speaker 1: carry esther if she would lead. So after a little
Speaker 1: while Sylvia gave her over, and then they set out
Speaker 1: on their strange journey. Sylvia went running on a little
Speaker 1: before while mister to Brigg followed after, with Esther in
Speaker 1: his arms, whimpering and struggling now to be free. And indeed,
Speaker 1: once she gave him a nip with her teeth, this
Speaker 1: was not so strange a thing to him now, and
Speaker 1: he knew the remedy for it, which is much the
Speaker 1: same as with others whose tempers run too high, that
Speaker 1: is a taste of it themselves. Mister to Brick shook
Speaker 1: her and gave her a smart little cup, after which
Speaker 1: though she sulked, she stopped her biting. They went thus
Speaker 1: above a mile, circling his house, and crossing the highway
Speaker 1: until they gained a small cupboard that lay with some
Speaker 1: waste fields adjacent to it. And by this time it
Speaker 1: was so dark that it was all mister to Brick
Speaker 1: could do to pick his wed, for it was not
Speaker 1: always easy for him to follow where his vixen bound
Speaker 1: a big enough row for herself. But at length they
Speaker 1: came to another earth, and by the starlight, mister de
Speaker 1: Brigg could just make out the other cubs skylarking in
Speaker 1: the shadows. Now he was tired, but he was happy
Speaker 1: and laughed softly for joy. And presently his vixen, coming
Speaker 1: to him, put her feet upon his shoulders as he
Speaker 1: sat on the ground, and licked him. And he kissed
Speaker 1: her back on the muzzle, and gathered her in his arms,
Speaker 1: and rolled her in his jacket, and then laughed and
Speaker 1: wept by turns in the excess of his joy. All
Speaker 1: his jealousies of the night before were forgotten. Now, all
Speaker 1: his desperate sorrow of the morning, and the horror of
Speaker 1: his dream were gone. What if they were foxes? Mister
Speaker 1: de Brigg found that he could be happy with them.
Speaker 1: As the weather was hot, he lay out there all
Speaker 1: the night first playing hide and seek with them in
Speaker 1: the dark, tilt, missing his vixen, and the cubs proving obstreperous,
Speaker 1: he lay down and was soon asleep. He was woken
Speaker 1: up soon after dawn by one of the cubs tugging
Speaker 1: at his shoelaces in play. When he sat up, he
Speaker 1: saw two of the cubs standing near him on their
Speaker 1: hind legs, rustling with each other. The other two were
Speaker 1: playing hide and seek round a tree trunk. And now
Speaker 1: Angelica let go his neceays and came romping into his
Speaker 1: arms to kiss him and say good morning to him,
Speaker 1: then worrying the points of his waistcoat a little shyly
Speaker 1: after the warmth of his embrace. That moment of awakening
Speaker 1: was very sweet to him. The freshness of the morning,
Speaker 1: the scent of everything, of the day's rebirth, the first
Speaker 1: beams of the sun upon a tree top near it,
Speaker 1: and a pigeon rising into the air suddenly all delighted him.
Speaker 1: Even the rough scent of the body of the cubin
Speaker 1: his arms seemed to him delicious. At that moment, all
Speaker 1: human customs and institutions seemed to him nothing but folly,
Speaker 1: For said he, I would exchange all my life as
Speaker 1: a man for my happiness now, and even now I
Speaker 1: retain almost all of the ridiculous conceptions of a man.
Speaker 1: The beasts are happier, and I will deserve that happiness
Speaker 1: is best I can. After he had looked at the
Speaker 1: cubs playing merrily, how with soft stuff one would creep
Speaker 1: behind another to bounce out and startle him. A thought
Speaker 1: came into mister Tebrick's head, and that was that these
Speaker 1: cubs were innocent. They were a stainless snow. They could
Speaker 1: not send, for God had created them to be thus,
Speaker 1: and they could break none of his commandments. And he
Speaker 1: fancied also that men say and because they cannot be
Speaker 1: as the animals. Presently, he got up, full of happiness,
Speaker 1: and began making his way home, when suddenly he came
Speaker 1: to a full stop and asked himself, what is going
Speaker 1: to happen to them? This question rooted him stockishly and
Speaker 1: a cold and deadly feared, as if he had seen
Speaker 1: a snake before him. At last, he shook his head
Speaker 1: and hurried on his path. I indeed, what would become
Speaker 1: of his vixen and her children? This thought put him
Speaker 1: into such a fever of apprehension that he did his
Speaker 1: best not to think of it anymore, But yet it
Speaker 1: stayed with him all that day and for weeks after,
Speaker 1: at the back of his mind, so that he was
Speaker 1: not careless in his happiness as before, but as it were,
Speaker 1: trying continually to escape his own thoughts. This made him
Speaker 1: also anxious to pass all the time he could with
Speaker 1: his dear Soviet, and therefore he began going out to
Speaker 1: them for more of the daytime, and then he would
Speaker 1: sleep the night in the woods, also as he had
Speaker 1: done that night. And so he passed several weeks owner
Speaker 1: returning to his house occasionally to get himself a fresh
Speaker 1: provision of food. But after a week or ten days
Speaker 1: at the new Earth, both his vixen and the cubs
Speaker 1: too got a new habit of roaming for a long
Speaker 1: while back, as he knew his vixen had been lying
Speaker 1: out alone most of the day, and now the cubs
Speaker 1: were all for doing the same thing. The earth, in short,
Speaker 1: had served its purpose and was now distasteful to them,
Speaker 1: and they would not enter it unless pressed with fear.
Speaker 1: This new manner of their lives was an added grief
Speaker 1: to mister Tubrick, for sometimes he missed them for hours together,
Speaker 1: or for the whole day even, and not knowing where
Speaker 1: they might be, was lonely and anxious. Yet his Sylvia
Speaker 1: was thoughtful for him too, and would often send Angelicate
Speaker 1: or another of the cubs to petch him to their
Speaker 1: new lad or come herself if she could spare the time.
Speaker 1: For now they were all perfectly accustomed to his presence
Speaker 1: and had come to look on him as their natural companion.
Speaker 1: And although he was in many ways irksome to them
Speaker 1: by scaring rabbits, yet they always rejoiced to see him
Speaker 1: when they had been parted from him. This friendliness of
Speaker 1: theirs was, you may be sure, the source of most
Speaker 1: of mister Tebrick's happiness at this time. Indeed, he lived
Speaker 1: now for nothing but his foxes. His love for is
Speaker 1: Rixen had extended itself insensibly to include her cubs, and
Speaker 1: these were now his daily playmates, so that he knew
Speaker 1: them as well as if they had been his own children.
Speaker 1: With Selwyn and Angelica, indeed, he was always happy, and
Speaker 1: they never so much as when they were with him.
Speaker 1: He was not stoop in his behavior, either, but had
Speaker 1: learnt by this time as much from his boxes as
Speaker 1: they had from him. Indeed, never was there a more
Speaker 1: curious alliance than this, or one with stronger effects upon
Speaker 1: both of the parties. Mister Tubrick now could follow after
Speaker 1: them anywhere, and keep up with them too, and could
Speaker 1: go through a wood as silently as a deer. He
Speaker 1: learned to conceal himself if ever a laborer passed by,
Speaker 1: so that he was rarely seen, and never but once
Speaker 1: in their company. But what was most strange of all,
Speaker 1: he had got a way of going doubled up, often
Speaker 1: almost on all fours, with his hands touching the ground
Speaker 1: every now and then, particularly when he went up hill.
Speaker 1: He hunted with them too, sometimes cheaply by coming up
Speaker 1: and scaring rabbits towards where the cubs lay, ambushed so
Speaker 1: that the bunnies ran straight into their jaws. He was
Speaker 1: useful to them in other ways, climbing up and robbing
Speaker 1: pigeons nests for the eggs, which they relished exceedingly, or
Speaker 1: by occasionally dispatching a hedgehog for them, so they did
Speaker 1: not get the prickles in their mouths. But while on
Speaker 1: his part he thus altered his conduct, they on their side,
Speaker 1: were not behindhand, but learned a dozen human tricks from
Speaker 1: him that are ordinarily wanting in Reynard's education. One evening
Speaker 1: he went to a cottager who had a row of
Speaker 1: skeps and bought one of them, just as it was
Speaker 1: after the man had smothered the bees. This he carried
Speaker 1: to the foxes, that they might taste the honey, for
Speaker 1: he had seen them dig out wild bees nests often enough.
Speaker 1: The skeepful was indeed a wonderful feast for them. They
Speaker 1: bit greedily into the heavy scented comb. Their jaws were
Speaker 1: drowned in the sticky blood of sweetness, and they gorged
Speaker 1: themselves on it without restraint. When they had crunched up
Speaker 1: the last morsel, they tore the skeep in pieces, and
Speaker 1: for hours afterwards they were happily employed in licking themselves clean.
Speaker 1: That night he slept near their lad, but they left
Speaker 1: him and went hunting. In the morning, when he woke,
Speaker 1: he was quite numb with cold and faint with hunger.
Speaker 1: A white nest hung over everything, and the wood smelt
Speaker 1: of autumn. He got up and stretched his cramped limbs,
Speaker 1: and then walked homewards. The summer was over, and mister
Speaker 1: Tubrick noticed this now for the first time. It was
Speaker 1: a stunner. He reflected that the cubs were past growing up.
Speaker 1: They were boxes at all points, And yet when he
Speaker 1: thought of the time when they had been sooti and
Speaker 1: had blue eyes, it seemed to him only yesterday. From
Speaker 1: that he passed to thinking of the future, asking himself,
Speaker 1: as he had done once before, what would become of
Speaker 1: his vixen and her children before the winter. He must
Speaker 1: tempt them into the security of his garden and fortify
Speaker 1: it against all the dangers that threatened them. But though
Speaker 1: we tried to allay his fear with such resolutions, he
Speaker 1: remained uneasy all that day. When he went out to
Speaker 1: them that afternoon, he found only his wife Sylvia there,
Speaker 1: and it was plain to him that she too was alarmed.
Speaker 1: But alas poor creature, she could tell him nothing, only
Speaker 1: lick his hands and face, and turn about, pricking her
Speaker 1: ears at every so And where are your children, Sylvia?
Speaker 1: He asked her several times, but she was impatient of
Speaker 1: his questions, but at last sprang into his arms, flattened
Speaker 1: herself upon his breast, and kissed him gently, so that
Speaker 1: when they departed, his heart was lighter, because he knew
Speaker 1: that she still loved him. That night he slept indoors,
Speaker 1: but in the morning early he was awoken by the
Speaker 1: sound of trotting horses, and running to the window saw
Speaker 1: a farmer riding by, very sprucely dressed. Could they be
Speaker 1: hunting so soon, he wondered, but presently reassured himself that
Speaker 1: he could not be a hunt. Already he heard no
Speaker 1: other sound till eleven o'clock in the morning, when suddenly
Speaker 1: there was the clamor of hounds giving tongue, and not
Speaker 1: so far off neither. At this mister t Brick ran
Speaker 1: out of his house, distracted, and set open the gates
Speaker 1: of his garden, but with iron bars and wire at
Speaker 1: the top so the huntsmen could not follow. There was
Speaker 1: silence again. It seems the fox must have turned away,
Speaker 1: for there was no other sound of the hunt. Mister
Speaker 1: to Brigg was now like one helpless with beer. He
Speaker 1: dared not go out. It could not stay still at home.
Speaker 1: There was nothing that he could do, yet he would
Speaker 1: not admit this, so he busied himself in making holes
Speaker 1: in the hedges so that Sylvia or her cubs could
Speaker 1: enter from whatever side she came. At last, he forced
Speaker 1: himself to go indoors and sit down and drink some tea.
Speaker 1: While he was there, he fancied he heard the hounds again.
Speaker 1: It was but a faint, ghostly echo of their music.
Speaker 1: Yet when he ran out of the house, it was
Speaker 1: already close at hand. In the cops above. Now it
Speaker 1: was that poor mister Brick made his great mistake. For,
Speaker 1: hearing the hounds almost outside the gate, he ran to
Speaker 1: meet them, whereas rightly he should have run back to
Speaker 1: the house. As soon as he reached the gate, he
Speaker 1: saw his wife Sylvia, coming towards him, but very tired
Speaker 1: with running, and just upon the hounds. The horror of
Speaker 1: that sight pierced him forever afterwards. He was haunted by
Speaker 1: those hounds, their eagerness, their desperate efforts to gain on her,
Speaker 1: and their blind lust burg came at odd moments to
Speaker 1: frighten him all his life. Now he should have run back,
Speaker 1: though it was already late, but instead he cried out
Speaker 1: to her, and she ran straight through the open gate
Speaker 1: to him. What followed was all over in a flash,
Speaker 1: but it was seen by many witnesses. The side of
Speaker 1: mister de Brick's garden there is bounded by a wall
Speaker 1: about six feet high. And curving round so that the
Speaker 1: huntsman could see over this wall inside. One of them
Speaker 1: indeed put his horse at it very boldly, which was
Speaker 1: risking his neck, And although we got over safe, was
Speaker 1: too late to be of much assistance his brixen and
Speaker 1: at one sprung into mister Brick's arms, and before we
Speaker 1: could turn back, the hounds were upon them and had
Speaker 1: pulled them down. Then at that moment there was a
Speaker 1: scream of despair heard by all the field that had
Speaker 1: come up, which they declared afterwards was more like a
Speaker 1: woman's voice than a man's. But yet there was no
Speaker 1: clear proof whether it was mister Tubrick or his wife,
Speaker 1: who had suddenly regained her voice. When the huntsman who
Speaker 1: had let the wall got to them and had whipped
Speaker 1: up the hounds, mister to Brick had been terribly muled
Speaker 1: and was bleeding from twenty wounds. As for his rixen,
Speaker 1: she was dead, though we were still clasping her dead
Speaker 1: body in his arms. Mister Brick was carried into the
Speaker 1: house at once and assistants sent for, But there was
Speaker 1: no doubt now about his neighbors being in the right
Speaker 1: when they called him mad. For a long while, his
Speaker 1: life was dispared up, but at last he rallied, and
Speaker 1: in the end he recovered his reason and lived to
Speaker 1: be a great age. For that matter, he is still
Speaker 1: alive and of Part eight and of Lady into Fox
Speaker 1: by David Garnett,