THE MASTER AT COTTONWOOL'S 17 



as pleasant as summer — that is to say, if they go the right 

 way to work. 



Even in sweethearting a foxhunter is worth a dozen such 

 fellows as Fribbleton Brown — fellows who hang about a 

 drawing-room all the morning, fumbling in women's work- 

 bags, stealing their thimbles, and stopping their worsted work. 

 Women like to have men " in tow," no doubt, but they don't 

 like to have fellows lying " at them " all day, like terriers 

 at fox-earths. The foxhunter goes out to " fresh fields and 

 pastures new," hears all the news, the fun, the nonsense, the 

 gossip of the world. His mind's enlarged, his spirits raised, 

 his body refreshed, and he comes back full of life and ani- 

 mation. If he has had a good run, and been carried to his 

 liking, his harvest-moon heart loves all the world. He'll do 

 anything short of accepting a bill of exchange. Our esteemed 

 friend, the author of the " Pleasures of Hope," albeit no 

 sportsman, or at least not a master of hounds, shadowed out 

 the feelings of a sportsman, and of a sportsman's lady-love, 

 when he sung 



" Who that would ask a heart to dulness wed. 

 The waveless calm, the slumber of the dead ? 

 No ; the wild bliss of nature needs alloy ! 

 And falls and tumbles fan the fire of joy I " 



We are not quite sure that " falls and tumbles" are the words 

 he used ; perhaps not. They savour of tautology, but again 

 that looks more like a non-sportsman, as Campbell was. Be 

 that as it may, they suit our purpose. There is no doubt, 

 however, that the roughings, and scramblings, and wettings 

 and rollings, and muddings of the morning, all tend to make a 

 man enjoy the comforts of home and the pleasure of female 

 societ}' in the evening : — 



" Domus et placens uxor." 



" Thy home, and in the cup of life, 

 That honey-drop, thy pleasing wife," 



