“They all seemed to be very angry with each
other at that narrow gate”
“They were in a hurry, I suppose.”
“Two of them jumped over the hedge. Why
didn’t they all jump? How long will it
be now before they catch him?”
“Very probably they may not catch him at all.”
“Not catch him after all that! Then the
man was certainly right to poison that other fox in
the wood. How long will they go on?”
“Half an hour perhaps.”
“And you call that hunting! Is it worth
the while of all those men to expend all that energy
for such a result? Upon the whole, Mr. Morton,
I should say that it is one of the most incomprehensible
things that I have ever seen in the course of a rather
long and varied life. Shooting I can understand,
for you have your birds. Fishing I can understand,
as you have your fish. Here you get a fox to
begin with, and are all broken-hearted. Then you
come across another, after riding about all day, and
the chances are you can’t catch him!”
“I suppose,” said Mr. Morton angrily,
“the habits of one country are incomprehensible
to the people of another. When I see Americans
loafing about in the bar-room of an hotel, I am lost
in amazement.”
“There is not a man you see who couldn’t
give a reason for his being there. He has an
object in view, though perhaps it may be no better
than to rob his neighbour. But here there seems
to be no possible motive.”
From Impington Gorse
The fox ran straight from the covert through his well-known
haunts to Impington Park, and as the hounds were astray
there for two or three minutes there was a general
idea that he too had got up into a tree,—which
would have amused the Senator very much had the Senator
been there. But neither had the country nor the
pace been adapted to wheels, and the Senator and the
Paragon were now returning along the road towards
Bragton. The fox had tried his old earths at
Impington High wood, and had then skulked back along
the outside of the covert. Had not one of the
whips seen him he would have been troubled no further
on that day, a fact, which if it could have been explained
to the Senator in all its bearings, would greatly
have added to his delight. But Dick viewed him;
and with many holloas and much blowing of horns, and
prayers from Captain Glomax that gentlemen would only
be so good as to hold their tongues, and a full-tongued
volley of abuse from half the field against an unfortunate
gentleman who rode after the escaping fox before a
hound was out of the covert, they settled again to
their business. It was pretty to see the quiet
ease and apparent nonchalance and almost affected
absence of bustle of those who knew their work,—among
whom were especially to be named young Hampton, and
the elder Botsey, and Lord Rufford, and, above all,
a dark-visaged, long-whiskered, sombre, military man
