146 



AN OCTOBER ABROAD, 



and that he differed from his brother on the American 

 side of the Atlantic only in being less alert and cau- 

 tious, having less use for these qualities. 



Now and then the train would start up some more 

 tempting game. A brace or two of partridges or a 

 covey of quails would settle down in the stubble, or a 

 . cock pheasant drop head and tail and slide into the 

 copse. Rabbits also would scamper back from the 

 borders of the fields into the thickets or peep slyly out, 

 making my sportsman's fingers tingle. 



I have no doubt I should be a notorious poacher in 

 England. How could an American see so much game 

 and not wash to exterminate it entirely as he does at 

 home ? But sporting is an expensive luxury here. In 

 the first place a man pays a heavy tax on his gun, 

 nearly or quite half its value ; then he has to have a 

 license to hunt, for which he pays smartly, then per- 

 mission from the owner of the land upon which he 

 wishes to hunt, so that the game is hedged about by a 

 triple safeguard. 



An American, also, will be at once struck with the 

 look of greater substantiality and completeness in 

 everything he sees here. No temporizing, no make- 

 shifts, no evidence of hurry, or failure, or contract 

 work ; no wood and little paint, but plenty of iron and 

 brick and stone. This people have taken plenty of 

 lime, and have built broad and deep, and placed the 

 cap-stone on. All this I had been told, but it pleased 

 me so in the seeing that I must tell it again. It is 



