74 THE HUNTING-FIELD. 



walk to just stretch his limbs and give him the 

 advantage of air, if the day is fine, is in most cases 

 advantageous, and with old horses apt to be stiff 

 after hunting indispensable. 



Rest we know to be, in its crude sense, the 

 absence of motion, and such rest for a given time 

 is requisite to recruit the jaded limb and spirits; 

 few hours of this suffice for that purpose : the 

 next stage of rest is the absence of exertion ; this 

 is also necessary for a given time, and provided 

 this is allowed, the prolonging the rest without 

 any motion at all would prove anything but 

 beneficial or conducive to bringing back the 

 energy of those functions that had been impaired 

 by over-exertion ; too long continued absence of 

 all motion causes stiffness instead of carrying it 

 off. 



A man after a day of unusual fatigue may 

 very fairly indulge in a few hours extra bed the 

 next morning; he may even indulge further by 

 reclining at times on a sofa after rising ; but if 

 in health, he must be the most indolent of the 

 indolent, if the weather was tempting, did he not 

 in the course of the day feel an inclination to 

 take a stroll on the lawn before his window : this 

 might surely be called a day of rest, and a man 

 doing this would rise on the second morning 

 fresher in mind, body, and limb, than one who 

 might have passed the thirty-six hours in bed. 



