WITH HORSE AND HOUND 



an hour beside his father's deathbed. I am godfather to that 

 whip's child. I have seen the servants of the hunt, as I have 

 seen the hounds, grow up round me for two generations, and I 

 look on them as old friends, and like to look into their brave, 

 honest, weather-beaten faces. That red coat there, I knew 

 him when he was a school-boy ; and now he is a captain in 

 the Guards, and won his Victoria Cross at Inkerman : that 

 bright green coat is the best farmer, as well as the hardest 

 rider, for many a mile round ; one who plays, as he works, with 

 all his might, and might have made a heau sabreur and colonel 

 of dragoons. So might that black coat, who now brews good 

 beer, and stands up for the poor at the Board of Guardians, 

 and rides, like the green coat, as well as he works. That other 

 black coat is a county banker : but he knows more of the fox 

 than the fox knows of himself, and where the hounds are, there 

 will he be this day. That red coat has hunted kangaroo in 

 Australia ; that one has — but what matter to you who each 

 man is ? Enough that each can tell me a good story, welcome 

 me cheerfully, and give me out here, in the wild forest, the 

 wholesome feeling of being at home among friends. 



' And am I going with them ? 



' Certainly. He who falls in with hounds running, and 

 follows them not as far as he can (business permitting, of 

 course, in a business country) is either more or less than man. 

 So I who am neither more nor less, but simply a man like my 

 neighbours, turn my horse's head to go. 



' There is music again, if you will listen, in the soft tread 

 of those hundred horse-hoofs upon the spungy vegetable soil. 

 They are trotting now in " common time." You may hear 

 the whole Croats' March (the finest trotting march in the world) 

 played by those iron heels ; the time, as it does in the Croats' 

 March, breaking now and then, plunging, jingling, struggling 

 through heavy ground, bursting for a moment into a jubilant 

 canter, as it reaches a sound spot. . . . 



' But that time does not last long. The hounds feather a 

 moment round Malepartus, puzzled by the windings of Rei- 



24 



