hither and thither a stark naked vixen, and without giving a glance
to her poor husband who stood silently now upon the bank, with despair
and terror settled in his mind. She let him stay there most of the
afternoon till he was chilled through and through and worn out with
watching her. At last he reflected how she had just stripped herself and
how in the morning she struggled against being dressed, and he thought
perhaps he was too strict with her and if he let her have her own way
they could manage to be happy somehow together even if she did eat off
the floor. So he called out to her then:

"Silvia, come now, be good, you shan't wear any more clothes if you
don't want to, and you needn't sit at table neither, I promise. You
shall do as you like in that, but you must give up one thing, and that
is you must stay with me and not go out alone, for that is dangerous. If
any dog came on you he would kill you."

Directly he had finished speaking she came to him joyously, began
fawning on him and prancing round him so that in spite of his vexation
with her, and being cold, he could not help stroking her.

"Oh, Silvia, are you not wilful and cunning? I see you glory in being
so, but I shall not reproach you but shall stick to my side of the
bargain, and you must stick to yours."

He built a big fire when he came back to the house and took a glass or
two of spirits also, to warm himself up, for he was chilled to the very
bone. Then, after they had dined, to cheer himself he took another
glass, and then another, and so on till he was very merry, he thought.
Then he would play with his vixen, she encouraging him with her pretty
sportiveness. He got up to catch her then and finding himself unsteady
on his legs, he went down on to all fours. The long and the short of it
is that by drinking he drowned all his sorrow; and then would be a beast
too like his wife, though she was one through no fault of her own, and
could not help it. To what lengths he went then in that drunken humour I
shall not offend my readers by relating, but shall only say that he was
so drunk and sottish that he had a very imperfect recollection of what
had passed when he woke the next morning. There is no exception to the
rule that if a man drink heavily at night the next morning will show the
other side to his nature. Thus with Mr. Tebrick, for as he had been
beastly, merry and a very dare-devil the night before, so on his
awakening was he ashamed, melanc