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Hunting Sketches-Part6_Antony Trollope(1815-1882)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

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breeches, or he may be uncomfortable and semi-decorous in black

trowsers. And there is another mode of dress open to him, which I



can assure my readers is not an unknown costume, a tertium quid,

by which semi-decorum and comfort are combined. The hunting



breeches are put on first, and the black trowsers are drawn over

them.



But in whatever garb the huntingparson may ride, he almost

invariably rides well, and always enjoys the sport. If he did



not, what would tempt him to run counter, as he does, to his

bishop and the old ladies ? And though, when the hounds are first



dashing out of covert, and when the sputtering is beginning and

the eager impetuosity of the young is driving men three at a time



into the same gap, when that wild excitement of a fox just away

is at its height, and ordinary sportsmen are rushing for



places, though at these moments the huntingparson may be able

to restrain himself, and to declare by his momentary tranquillity



that he is only there to see the hounds, he will ever be found,

seeing the hounds also, when many of that eager crowd have lagged



behind, altogether out of sight of the last tail of them. He will

drop into the running, as it were out of the clouds, when the



select few have settled down steadily to their steady work; and

the select few will never look upon him as one who, after that,



is likely to fall out of their number. He goes on certainly to

the kill, and then retires a little out of the circle, as though



he had trotted in at that spot from his ordinary parochial

occupations, just to see the hounds.



For myself I own that I like the huntingparson. I generally find

him to be about the pleasantest man in the field, with the most



to say for himself, whether the talk be of hunting, of politics,

of literature, or of the country. He is never a hunting man



unalloyed, unadulterated, and unmixed, a class of man which is

perhaps of all classes the most tedious and heavy in hand. The



tallow-chandler who can talk only of candles, or the barrister

who can talk only of his briefs, is very bad; but the hunting man



who can talk only of his runs, is, I think, worse even than the

unadulterated tallow-chandler, or the barrister unmixed. Let me



pause for a moment here to beg young sportsmen not to fall into

this terrible mistake. Such bores in the field are, alas, too



common; but the huntingparson never sins after that fashion.

Though a keen sportsman, he is something else besides a



sportsman, and for that reason, if for no other, is always a

welcome addition to the crowd.



But still I must confess at the end of this paper, as I hinted

also at the beginning of it, that the huntingparson seems to



have made a mistake. He is kicking against the pricks, and

runningcounter to that section of the world which should be his



section. He is making himself to stink in the nostrils of his

bishop, and is becoming a stumbling-block, and a rock of offence



to his brethren. It is bootless for him to argue, as I have here

argued, that his amusement is in itself innocent, and that some



open-air recreation is necessary to him. Grant him that the

bishops and old ladies are wrong and that he is right in



principle, and still he will not be justified. Whatever may be

our walk in life, no man can walk well who does not walk with the



esteem of his fellows. Now those little walks by the covert

sides, those pleasant little walks of which I am writing, are



not, unfortunately, held to be estimable, or good for themselves,

by English clergymen in general.



THE MASTER OF HOUNDS.

The master of hounds best known by modern description is the



master of the Jorrocks type. Now, as I take it, this is not the

type best known by English sportsmen, nor do the Jorrocks ana,



good though they be, give any fair picture of such a master of

hounds as ordinarily presides over the hunt in English counties.



Mr. Jorrocks comes into a hunt when no one else can be found to




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