Sykes, for instance, when his dressing-shop was set on fire and burned to the ground, when the cloth was torn from his tenters and left in shreds in the field, took no steps to discover or punish the miscreants: he gave up as tamely as a rabbit under the jaws of a ferret. 
Sykes, for instance, when his place was burned to the ground, took no steps to discover or punish the miscreants: he gave up as tamely as a rabbit to a ferret. 