134 THE AMATEUR TRAMP IN ENGLAND 



easy-going temper, are found to be very tolerable 

 substitutes. Rapid motion and swift change of scene 

 are always exhilarating in any shape. Johnson, whose 

 powerful but ungainly frame was scarcely cut .out for 

 steady toe-and-heel work, remarked complacently while 

 being hurried along in a post-chaise, that life had few 

 better things to offer. Scott, when condemned by 

 breaking health to jog along Tweedside on "a canny- 

 trotting pony," reverted with melancholy mingled with 

 pleasure to " the grand gallops he had had among these 

 braes " when thinking of his " Marmion." And many 

 a man has subscribed since then to the dicta of the 

 Fleet Street philosopher and the Great Magician of the 

 North. The revival of coaching days in the Four-in- 

 hand and Coaching Clubs is a tribute to the pleasures 

 of the box-seat behind the fiery-footed team that was 

 being sprung by some workman over the level ; and 

 what can be more exhilarating for the moment than the 

 brush after the hounds, when the scent is being carried 

 breast-high, and the melodious pack may be covered 

 with a blanket ! But on the road and in the hunting 

 field alike came the inevitable seasons of reaction and 

 depression cramped legs and tingling fingers, checks 

 and catastrophes where excitement comes to a sudden 

 collapse, dismal rides homeward in the damp and the 

 darkness, when the fires of the day have died down and 

 are smouldering in the dulness of their ashes. Perhaps 

 it is only on his own sturdy legs, with each muscle and 

 fibre in springy motion, that man feels master of his 

 animal spirits, and can assert his absolute independence 



