“Some act as if they were,” rejoined I.
“Act?” sneered the old hound. “Upon my soul I can’t think what nineteen out of twenty were born for. Certainly not for fox-hunting; that’s quite evident.”
“It’s a good thing,” I remarked, “that our master is not one of the stone-heads.”
“Yes,” returned he, “we are fortunate in that respect, and in most others. Will and Mark are as famous hound servants as ever entered a kennel, and, as a good huntsman makes good hounds, so does a good master make good servants.”
“There’s a wonderful deal in the management,” I observed.
“Everything,” replied Trimbush. “And, unless a master of foxhounds is a thorough-going sportsman, and is acquainted with all the apparently trifling details of his establishment, you may depend upon it that he’s very much out of his place.”
“Your information concerning our liberty during the summer months,” said I, “has reconciled me somewhat to the mortification of closing the season.”
“We need not examine farther,” resumed Trimbush, “than the effect produced upon birds, when caged, to learn the advantages of freedom. The plumage of a wild bird is close, smooth, and bright; while that of one in close confinement is dull and rough. There is strength and energy in the one, too, which is never seen in the other.”
“The feather often shows which way the wind blows,” remarked I.
“As well as the national banner of England floating in the breeze,” returned the old hound.