To finish well is everything in hunting. To
have led for over an hour is nothing, let the pace and country have
been what they might, if you fall away during the last half mile.
Therefore it is that those behind hope that the fox may make this
or that cover, while the forward men long to see him turned over in
every field. To ride to hounds is very glorious; but to have ridden
to hounds is more glorious still. They had now crossed another road,
and a larger one, and had got into a somewhat closer country. The
fields were not so big, and the fences were not so high. Phineas got
a moment to look about him, and saw Lord Chiltern riding without his
cap. He was very red in the face, and his eyes seemed to glare, and
he was tugging at his horse with all his might. But the animal seemed
still to go with perfect command of strength, and Phineas had too
much work on his own hands to think of offering Quixotic assistance
to any one else. He saw some one, a farmer, as he thought, speak to
Lord Chiltern as they rode close together; but Chiltern only shook
his head and pulled at his horse.
There were brooks in those parts. The river Eye forms itself
thereabouts, or some of its tributaries do so; and these tributaries,
though small as rivers, are considerable to men on one side who are
called by the exigencies of the occasion to place themselves quickly
on the other.
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