neral, jostling and pushing,
spurring and driving, with every thought thrown to the winds save
that they should have the blood of this absurd fox! Truly, they are an
extraordinary people, the English!

But I had little time to watch the hunt or to marvel at these islanders,
for of all these mad creatures the very horse upon which I sat was
the maddest. You understand that he was himself a hunter, and that the
crying of these dogs was to him what the call of a cavalry trumpet in
the street yonder would be to me. It thrilled him. It drove him wild.
Again and again he bounded into the air, and then, seizing the bit
between his teeth, he plunged down the slope and galloped after the
dogs.

I swore, and tugged, and pulled, but I was powerless.

This English General rode his horse with a snaffle only, and the beast
had a mouth of iron. It was useless to pull him back. One might as well
try to keep a grenadier from a wine-bottle. I gave it up in despair,
and, settling down in the saddle, I prepared for the worst which could
befall.

What a creature he was! Never have I felt such a horse between my knees.
His great haunches gathered under him with every stride, and he shot
forward ever faster and faster, stretched like a greyhound, while
the wind beat in my face and whistled past my ears. I was wearing our
undress jacket, a uniform simple and dark in itself--though some figures
give distinction to any uniform--and I had taken the precaution to
remove the long panache from my busby. The result was that, amidst the
mixture of costumes in the hunt, there was no reason why mine should
attract attention, or why these men, whose thoughts were all with the
chase, should give any heed to me. The idea that a French officer might
be riding with them was too absurd to enter their minds. I laughed as I
rode, for, indeed, amid all the danger, there was something of comic in
the situation.

I have said that the hunters were very unequally mounted, and so at the
end of a few miles, instead of being one body of men, like a charging
regiment, they were scattered over a considerable space, the better
riders well up to the dogs and the others trailing away behind.

Now, I was as good a rider as any, and my horse was the best of them
all, and so you can imagine that it was not long before he carried me
to the front. And when I saw the dogs streaming over the open, and
the red-coated huntsman behind them, and only seven or eight horsemen
be