One dog struck
at the buck's throat, another dashed his sharp nose and fangs, I might
almost say, into the animal's bowels. It would have been natural for
Lord Glenvarloch, himself persecuted as if by hunters, to have thought
upon the occasion like the melancholy Jacques; but habit is a strange
matter, and I fear that his feelings on the occasion were rather those
of the practised huntsman than of the moralist. He had no time,
however, to indulge them, for mark what befell.
A single horseman followed the chase, upon a steed so thoroughly
subjected to the rein, that it obeyed the touch of the bridle as if it
had been a mechanical impulse operating on the nicest piece of
machinery; so that, seated deep in his demipique saddle, and so
trussed up there as to make falling almost impossible, the rider,
without either fear or hesitation, might increase or diminish the
speed at which he rode, which, even on the most animating occasions of
the chase, seldom exceeded three-fourths of a gallop, the horse
keeping his haunches under him, and never stretching forward beyond
the managed pace of the academy. The security with which he chose to
prosecute even this favourite, and, in the ordinary case, somewhat
dangerous amusement, as well as the rest of his equipage, marked King
James. No attendant was within sight; indeed, it was often a nice
strain of flattery to permit the Sovereign to suppose he had outridden
and distanced all the rest of the chase.
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