there would be several loafers most likely who would notice
that he had a fox with him, and even if he left the hamper in the cart
the dogs at the inn would be sure to sniff out her scent. So not to take
any chances he drew up at the side of the road and rested there, though
it was freezing hard and a north-east wind howling.

He took down his precious hamper, unharnessed his two horses, covered
them with rugs and gave them their corn. Then he opened the basket and
let his wife out. She was quite beside herself with joy, running hither
and thither, bouncing up on him, looking about her and even rolling over
on the ground. Mr. Tebrick took this to mean that she was glad at making
this journey and rejoiced equally with her. As for Mrs. Cork, she sat
motionless on the back seat of the dogcart well wrapped up, eating her
sandwiches, but would not speak a word. When they had stayed there
half-an-hour Mr. Tebrick harnessed the horses again, though he was so
cold he could scarcely buckle the straps, and put his vixen in her
basket, but seeing that she wanted to look about her, he let her tear
away the osiers with her teeth till she had made a hole big enough for
her to put her head out of.

They drove on again and then the snow began to come down and that in
earnest, so that he began to be afraid they would never cover the
ground. But just after nightfall they got in, and he was content to
leave unharnessing the horses and baiting them to Simon, Mrs. Cork's
son. His vixen was tired by then, as well as he, and they slept
together, he in the bed and she under it, very contentedly.

The next morning he looked about him at the place and found the thing
there that he most wanted, and that was a little walled-in garden where
his wife could run in freedom and yet be in safety.

After they had had breakfast she was wild to go out into the snow. So
they went out together, and he had never seen such a mad creature in all
his life as his wife was then. For she ran to and fro as if she were
crazy, biting at the snow and rolling in it, and round and round in
circles and rushed back at him fiercely as if she meant to bite him. He
joined her in the frolic, and began snowballing her till she was so wild
that it was all he could do to quiet her again and bring her indoors for
luncheon. Indeed with her gambollings she tracked the whole garden over
with her feet; he could see where she had rolled in the snow and where
she had danced in it, an