At the same time he gave orders to old Nanny that she was to put out
food and water for her mistress, on the chance that she might yet be in
the neighbourhood.

By nightfall Simon was back with the news that the hunt had had a very
long run but had lost one fox, then, drawing a covert, had chopped an
old dog fox, and so ended the day's sport.

This put poor Mr. Tebrick in some hopes again, and he rose at once from
his bed, and went out to the wood and began calling his wife, but was
overcome with faintness, and lay down and so passed the night in the
open, from mere weakness.

In the morning he got back again to the cottage but he had taken a
chill, and so had to keep his bed for three or four days after.

All this time he had food put out for her every night, but though rats
came to it and ate of it, there were never any prints of a fox.

At last his anxiety began working another way, that is he came to think
it possible that his vixen would have gone back to Stokoe, so he had his
horses harnessed in the dogcart and brought to the door and then drove
over to Rylands, though he was still in a fever, and with a heavy cold
upon him. After that he lived always solitary, keeping away from his
fellows and only seeing one man, called Askew, who had been brought up a
jockey at Wantage, but was grown too big for his profession. He mounted
this loafing fellow on one of his horses three days a week and had him
follow the hunt and report to him whenever they killed, and if he could
view the fox so much the better, and then he made him describe it