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, melancholic and a true penitent before his Creator.  The first thing he did when he came to himself was to call out to God to forgive him for his sin, then he fell into earnest prayer and continued so for half-an-hour upon his knees.  Then he got up and dressed but continued very melancholy for the whole of the morning.  Being in this mood you may imagine it hurt him to see his wife running about naked, but he reflected it would be a bad reformation that began with breaking faith.  He had made a bargain and he would stick to it, and so he let her be, though sorely against his will.

For the same reason, that is because he would stick to his side of the bargain, he did not require her to sit up at table, but gave her her breakfast on a dish in the corner, where to tell the truth she on her side ate it all up with great daintiness and propriety.  Nor she did make any attempt to go out of doors that morning, but lay curled up in an armchair before the fire dozing.  After lunch he took her out, and she never so much as offered to go near the ducks, but running before him led him on to take her a longer walk.  This he consented to do very much to her joy and delight.  He took her through the fields by the most unfrequented ways, being much alarmed lest they should be seen by anyone.  But by good luck they walked above four miles across country and saw nobody.  All the way his wife kept running on ahead of him, and then back to him to lick his hand and so on, and appeared delighted at taking exercise.  And though they startled two or three rabbits and a hare in the course of their walk she never attempted to go after them, only giving them a look and then looking back to him, laughing at him as it were for his warning cry of “Puss! come in, no nonsense now!”

Just when they got home and were going into the porch they came face to face with an old woman.  Mr. Tebrick stopped short in consternation and looked about for his vixen, but she had run forward without any shyness to greet her.  Then he recognised the intruder, it was his wife’s old nurse.