At certain periods of the year he
if ho went out twice a he rarely left his house than he would
leave it periods of the year he would, perhaps, be out before
dawn; but then the general habits of his life conduced to early
rising; and his distances were short. If he kept a couple of
horses for the purpose he was well mounted, and these horses were
available for other uses. He rode out and home, jogging slowly
along the roads, and was a martyr to no ambition. All that has
been changed now. The man who hunts and likes it, either takes a
small hurting seat away from the comforts of his own home, or he
locates himself miserably at an inn, or he undergoes the
purgatory of daily journeys up and down from London, doing that
for his hunting which no consideration of money-making would
induce him to do for his business. His hunting requires from him
everything, his time, his money, his social hours, his rest, his
sweet morning sleep; nay, his very dinners have to be sacrificed
to this Moloch!
Let us follow him on an ordinary day. His groom comes to his bed-
chamber at seven o'clock, and tells him that it has frozen during
the night. If he be a London man, using the train for his
hunting, he knows nothing of the frost, and does not learn
whether the day be practicable or not till he finds himself down
in the country.
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