“It seems to me that a good many things have burst, or failed to burst, to-day,” George muttered.
Then they proceeded to their camp,—as Marmaduke loved to call the miserable shanty that barely afforded them shelter,—affecting to carry their guns and their almost empty game-bags as though they were veteran hunters.
Each one was thinking about the deer which was rightfully Will’s, and each one felt that the affair was not over yet.
It is with some real reluctance that the scene with the forester is introduced, because romancers take altogether too much delight in parading villainy; but at one time this scene seemed, in a measure, to be necessary to the construction of this story. Afterwards the writer had not the moral courage to leave it out.
Most readers can remember that in almost all novels that they have read, (excepting, of course, the “intensely interesting” ones,) there was at least one chapter which, taken by itself, seemed tiresome and useless; but which, woven in skilfully, and taken in connection with the whole, was necessary to the perfection of the novel.
After writing these two paragraphs, in order to disarm all hostile criticism, we shall imagine a conscientious reader’s referring to this chapter, after he has carefully perused the entire story, and saying, with a horrible fear that his usual insight into things has forsaken him: “Well, I can’t see the particular need and worth of this chapter,” while we furnish this consoling information—“Neither can we!”
Now, carpers, if you can apprehend the meaning of all this, draw out your engines and bring them into play.
Another point: Let not the conscientious reader rack his brains in a vain endeavor to discover what particular “follies,” or “foibles,” are attacked in this chapter, for the writer himself does not know; though he is morally certain that he has not written these two chapters just to injure the trade in silver rings.