'Now, Tom, don't
you drink port-wine. Lord Chiltern, look after him, and don't let
him have port-wine.'
Then there began an altogether different phase of hunting
conversation. As long as the ladies were there it was all very
well to talk of hunting as an amusement, good sport, a thirty
minutes or so, the delight of having a friend in a ditch, or the
glory of a still-built rail were fitting subjects for a higher
hour. But now the business of the night was to begin. The
difficulties, the enmities, the precautions, the resolutions, the
resources of the Brake hunt were to be discussed. And from thence
the conversation of these devotees strayed away to the perils at
large to which hunting in these modern days is subjected;--not the
perils of broken necks and crushed ribs, which can be reduced to
an average, and so an end made of that small matter; but the
perils from outsiders, the perils of newfangled prejudices, the
perils from more modern sports, the perils from over-cultivation,
the perils from extended population, the perils from intruding
cads, the perils from indifferent magistrates,--the Duke of Omnium
for instance,--and that peril of perils, the peril of decrease of
funds and increase of expenditure! The jaunty gentleman who puts
on his dainty breeches and his pair of boots, and his single horse
rides out on a pleasant morning to some neighbouring meet,
thinking himself a sportsman, has but a faint idea of the troubles
which a few staunch workmen endure in order that he may not be
made to think that his boots, and his breeches, and his horse,
have not been in vain.
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