ld
expose the culprit to the chance of receiving a charge of No. 3 in his
jacket; and as each _Mare_ has its wooden hut, in successive summers,
constructed by you, embellished by me, knocked in, cut about, injured by
some one else, and repaired by all--the first man who puts the stock of
his gun on the floor of the cabin becomes immediately and incontestibly
the lucky proprietor of it for that night.

And how shall I explain to you the thousand cunning tricks, the
diabolical, the ingenious finesses, the Philipistic and Machiavellian
diplomacy, which sportsmen employ one towards the other to obtain
possession? Two friends, for instance, meet by accident on the same
road; with what perfect and impudent lies do they entertain each
other!--with what gusto do they try and take one another in!--what
cheating doubts do they not mutually endeavour to raise, in their desire
to induce each other to take the wrong road! With the effrontery of a
_diplomate_, with the assurance of a secretary of legation,--one
affirms, his hand on his heart, and looking towards heaven, that he is
going to the left, when it is his positive intention, well-considered
beforehand, to go to the right. No, France and England, Bresson and
Bulwer, playing their game of chess of the Spanish marriages on the
green cloth of political rascality,--never said anything comparable to
the devices of these lying chevaliers of the forest.

Everything is permitted--every stratagem is fair, so long as either is
endeavouring to triumph over his adversary; and then, when they have
gone so far as to be able to wish one another good afternoon, and each
has convinced himself that he has put the other on the wrong road--that,
thank the stars, his rival is off, that he is far off, that he cannot
see him--what haste! what strides and leaps to get speedily to the spot,
and make himself safe! The running of the celebrated Greek, who, with
his breast laid open by a ghastly wound, ran eighty miles in ten hours
to announce to the impatient Athenians the victory of Marathon, was the
pace of a tortoise compared with the demon-racing of these _chasseurs_.

And, after all this anxiety and rapid locomotion,--after turning and
winding in and out of the wood, and round the wood to avoid the
open--across the brook to avoid the bridge--through the brambles and
thick underwood to avoid the open path--when you think you have cheated,
or, at any rate, distanced your enemy,--when you perceive