David looked more confused still.
"Things come," he said; "there's so much to write about. I hope——"
"What do you hope?"
"I hope I shall always write. I've got it in me," he blurted.
"You just pray for a voice instead," his father answered; "it will pay you a heap better. Let fools hammer out the words for you! It's not the chaps that write things who have good times, my boy; it's the fellows that sing, or publish 'em." He read the lines slowly, while the author trembled. "I don't understand what it's meant to be," he said; "is it a hunting song? It's all about the fox's suffering, instead of the people's sport."
David winced: "The fox does suffer, doesn't he?"
"I daresay; but the people enjoy themselves. A hunting song must be jolly—Pink and Tallyho! Have you ever been to a meet? It's a very pretty sight, let me tell you."
"I know it is; but I didn't try to feel like the people who dress up to kill the fox—I tried to feel like the fox they all want to kill."
"What's the good of that? Foxes don't, buy songs. You should have thought about the fun and the cheers. It's all on the wrong side; it's wrong-headed, that's what it is."
"I did think about the cheers—I thought how they must sound to the fox. And I thought when he sees a crowd of big men and women on horses, with a pack of hounds, chasing him to death, the field must look like the world to his fright. He has run till he's breathless, his legs 'll hardly carry him. The crowd are gaining on him and his heart feels as if it's going to burst. They swoop nearer and nearer, and he's bedraggled, and panting, and dead beat. Oh yes, I thought of the cheers—he hears them right to the end. And then the dogs fall on him—such a lot of dogs—and a man sticks a knife into his body, and the lady who's there when he dies carries away a piece of the corpse, and feels proud. It sounds like a game of savages, father."