They have an
acknowledged system, and know what they are doing. But the men
who don't like it, have no system, and never know distinctly what
is their own aim. During some portion of their career they
commonly try to ride hard, and sometimes for a while they will
succeed. In short spurts, while the cherry-brandy prevails, they
often have small successes; but even with the assistance of a
spur in the head they never like it.
Dear old John Leech! What an eye he had for the man who hunts and
doesn't like it ! But for such, as a pictorial chronicler of the
hunting field he would have had no fame. Briggs, I fancy, in his
way did like it. Briggs was a full-blooded, up-apt, awkward,
sanguine man, who was able to like anything, from gin and water
upwards. But with how many a wretched companion of Briggs' are we
not familiar? men as to whom any girl of eighteen would swear
from the form of his visage and the carriage of his legs as he
sits on his horse that he was seeking honour where honour was not
to be found, and looking for pleasure in places where no pleasure
lay for him.
But the man who hunts and doesn't like it, has his moments of
gratification, and finds a source of pride in his penance. In the
summer, hunting does much for him. He does not usually take much
personal care of his horses, as he is probably a town man and his
horses are summered by a keeper of hunting stables; but he talks
of them.
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