Of all fashions of hunting it requires, perhaps, the
most patience, the keenest observation, the strongest memory, and
the greatest efforts of intellect. But the power, when achieved,
has its triumph; it has its respect, and it has its admirers. Our
friend, while he was guiding the unfortunates on the road, knew
his position, and rode for a while as though he were a chief of
men. He was the chief of men there. He was doing what he knew how
to do, and was not failing. He had made no boasts which stern
facts would afterwards disprove. And when he rode up slowly to
the wood-side, having from a distance heard the huntsman's whoop
that told him of the fox's fate, he found that he had been right
in every particular. No one at that moment knows the line they
have all ridden as well as he knows it. But now, among the crowd,
when men are turning their horses' heads to the wind, and loud
questions are being asked, and false answers are being given, and
the ambitious men are congratulating themselves on their deeds,
he sits by listening in sardonic silence. "Twelve miles of ground
!" he says to himself, repeating the words of some valiant
youngster; " if it's eight, I'll eat it." And then when he
hears, for he is all ear as well as all eye, when he hears a
slight boast from one of his late unfortunate companions, a first
small blast of the trumpet which will become loud anon if it be
not checked, he smiles inwardly, and moralizes on the weakness of
human nature.
Pages:
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63