I never
jump at all, and I'm always free to go where I like." The Duke
was certainly right, and Jones was certainly wrong. To get into a
field, and then to have no way of getting out of it, is very
uncomfortable. As long as you are on the road you have a way open
before you to every spot on the world's surface, open, or
capable of being opened; or even if incapable of being opened,
not positively detrimental to you as long as you are on the right
side. But that feeling of a prison under the open air is very
terrible, and is rendered almost agonizing by the prisoner's
consciousness that his position is the result of his own
imprudent temerity, of an audacity which falls short of any
efficacious purpose. When hounds are running, the hunting man
should always, at any rate, be able to ride on, to ride in some
direction, even though it be in a wrong direction. He can then
flatter himself that he is riding wide and making a line for
himself. But to be entrapped into a field without any power of
getting out of it; to see the red backs of the forward men
becoming smaller and smaller in the distance, till the last speck
disappears over some hedge; to see the fence before you and know
that it is too much for you; to ride round and round in an agony
of despair which is by no means mute, and at last to give
sixpence to some boy to conduct you back into the road; that is
wretched: that is real unhappiness.
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