It was not in these terms that I had expected to hear the Major addressing me, and it was rather bewildering. Still I trust that I was not puffed up with an unseemly vanity as Laura rode back by my side. She looked lovely with the flush of exercise on her cheek, and the sparkle of excitement in her eyes; and as we passed homewards through the quiet country lanes I forgot the painful creases that were afflicting me, and with as much eloquence as was compatible with the motion of my steed—I ventured!
The blushes deepen on her cheek. She consents on one condition: I must give up hunting.
"You are so rash and daring," she says, softly—very softly, "that I should never be happy when you were out."
"I trust I was not puffed up with an unseemly vanity, as Laura rode back by my side…. 'You are so rash and daring,' she says softly, 'that I should never be happy when you were out.'"—Pages 284-5.
Can I refuse her anything—even this? Impossible!
I promise: vowing fervently to myself to keep my word; and on no account do anything to increase the reputation I made at Huntingcrop Hall.
A DOG HUNT ON THE BERWYNS
Thanks to the columns of the sporting papers, every Englishman, whatever his occupation, is sufficiently familiar with the details of fox-hunting, and all other kinds of hunting usually practised in merry England; but few, I fancy, have either seen or heard of a dog-hunt. It has fallen to my lot to participate in such a hunt; one, too, which was quite as exciting as a wolf-hunt must have been in the olden time, or as that most glorious of sports, otter-hunting, is now. Imagine to yourself a three days' chase after a fierce and savage dog, a confirmed sheep worrier, and that in the midst of the picturesque ruggedness and grandeur of the Welsh hills.