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You seem to forget, Nelly, that I saw one wedding all through, and, indeed, bore as prominent a part in it as one of my downtrodden sex could aspire to; and as the Frenchman said, who went on an English fox-chase, "Une fois, c'est assez; I am ver' satisfy."
"Sir P. Yes, madam, when first I saw you, you were dressed in a pretty figured linen gown, with a bunch of keys by your side; your occupations, madam, to superintend the poultry; your accomplishments, a complete knowledge of the family receipt-book then you sat in a room hung round with fruit in worsted of your own working; your amusements were to play country-dances on an old spinnet to your father while he went asleep after a fox-chase to read Tillotson's sermons to your aunt Deborah.
I'll do anything you like in the saddle, from robbing the mail to cutting out a frigate; but I never was much of a foot-pad." "Well, Mike," said I, as I returned to the room with my trusty follower, "are the cattle to be depended on?" "By Jove, he thinks it a fox-chase!" said Hampden. "Isn't it the same, sir?" said Mike, with a seriousness that made the whole party smile.
To their shame be it told, Salem folk announced in 1809 a bull-fight at the Half-Way House on the new turnpike, and after the bull-fight a fox-chase. In 1735 John Burlesson had some strange animals to show, and was not always allowed to exhibit them either: "the Lyon, the Black and Whight bare and the Lanechtskipt were shown by me that had their limbs as long as they pleased."
Every instant brought me nearer to the fox. The moment for action had arrived, so I unsheathed my sabre. I waved it in the air, and the brave English all shouted behind me. Only then did I understand how difficult is this fox-chase, for one may cut again and again at the creature and never strike him once. He is small, and turns quickly from a blow.
Brown was puzzling himself to conceive how a fox-chase could take place among hills, where it was barely possible for a pony, accustomed to the ground, to trot along, but where, quitting the track for half a yard's breadth, the rider might be either bogged, or precipitated down the bank This wonder was not diminished when he came to the place of action.
The hand-to-hand conflicts, the duels with bayonets and swords and the clouds of smoke were probably heroic and picturesque before the age of rapid-fire guns, modern rifles, and smokeless ammunition, but here the field of battle resembled a country fox-chase with an exaggerated number of hunters, more than a representation of a battle of twenty-five years ago.
"Go on, madam," said he; "make a clean breast of it so shall you enable me to compare the future with the past, and state your coming fortunes more distinctly." "Another gentleman, sir a country squire owes, I fear, his death to my severity; he was a hard drinker, but I gave him a month to reform which sentence he took so much to heart that he broke his neck in a fox-chase from mere despair.
But then, as now, it offered the finest exhibition of the fox-chase that is known in Europe; and then, as now, this is the best adapted among all known varieties of hunting to the exhibition of adventurous and skilful riding, and generally, perhaps, to the development of manly and athletic qualities.
How I longed to take my place beside that hearth, and in the same oak-chair where I have sat telling the bold adventures of a fox-chase or some long day upon the moors, speak of the scenes of my campaigning life, and make known to him those gallant fellows by whose side I have charged in battle, or sat in the bivouac! How will he glory in the soldier-like spirit and daring energy of Fred Power!
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