174 CHAMOIS HUNTING. 



badly wounded, to suffer until we came back. I ho- 

 nestly avow I am not one of those excessively humane 

 persons who find cruelty in the chase. To send a ball 

 through a stag or roebuck, and so take his life at once, 

 does not give me a pang, for I do not deem it cruel ; 

 although whenever I stand beside an animal whose 

 life I have just taken, a sudden emotion within always 

 keeps me silent. The taking life, the destroying that 

 which only God can give, seems a so daring deed; 

 and, contradictory as it may appear for a hunter to 

 say so, my first feeling, as I look at the heap before 

 me, which but now was such a thing for wonder, is to 

 be astounded at what my hand has done. 



For be it remembered that it is not in killing his 

 quarry that the hunter's delight consists, but in the 

 excitement of the pursuit, in the varying chances, in 

 the " hope deferred," and above all in that crowning 

 moment when whispering to himself, "Now he is 

 mine!" Then is the real climax: in that short exqui- 

 site second before the death before quite all has been 

 obtained, when the prize, the reward of all your toil 

 and risk, is surely won, but not yet possessed, that 

 is the moment of the highest joy. You fire, he falls, 

 and you are well pleased ; but the sensation is tame 

 compared to the subtle, quivering intensity of what 

 you felt before. 



No true lover of the chase can he be, who estimates 

 his pleasure only by the number he has killed : ' The 

 Noble Arte ' teaches another lesson. 



Few things are more painful to the sportsman than 



