The sun was
over us, and as I looked up to drink with my eyes of the warm light, I
was taking a draught of God's best wine from off yonder in the north,
of the wine that quickens the blood and drives away the brain-clouds.
A day of days this was to race over the ridges while the music of the
hounds rang through them; a day of days to dash from thicket to
thicket, over the hills and through the hollows, leaping logs and
vaulting fences, with every sense keyed to the highest; for the fox is
a clever general. So young Colonel was puzzled, for there I was on a
log, at the crest of the ridge, with my crutches at one side and my gun
at the other, when I should be away after old Captain, the real leader
of the sport, after Arnold and Tip and Betsy. This was the best I
could do, to sit here and listen and hope--listen as the chase went
swinging along the ridges; hope that a kind fate and an unwise Reynard
would bring them where I could add the bark of my rifle to the song of
the hounds. You can't explain everything to a dog.
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