all my class prejudices against "game-preserving aristocrats," I almost
envied the man; at least I seemed to understand a little of the universally
attractive charms which those same outwardly contemptible field sports
possess; the fresh air, fresh fields and copses, fresh running brooks, the
exercise, the simple freedom, the excitement just sufficient to keep alive
expectation and banish thought.--After all, his trout produced much the
same mood in him as my turnpike-road did in me. And perhaps the man did not
go fishing or shooting every day. The laws prevented him from shooting, at
least, all the year round; so sometimes there might be something in which
he made himself of use. An honest, jolly face too he had--not without
thought and strength in it. "Well, it is a strange world," said I to
myself, "where those who can, need not; and those who cannot, must!"

Then he came close to the gate, and I left it just in time to see a little
group arrive at it--a woman of his own rank, young, pretty, and simply
dressed, with a little boy, decked out as a Highlander, on a shaggy
Shetland pony, which his mother, as I guessed her to be, was leading. And
then they all met, and the little fellow held up a basket of provisions
to his father, who kissed him across the gate, and hung his creel of fish
behind the saddle, and patted the mother's shoulder, as she looked up
lovingly and laughingly in his face. Altogether, a joyous, genial bit
of--Nature? Yes, Nature. Shall I grudge simple happiness to the few,
because it is as yet, alas! impossible for the many.

And yet the whole scene contrasted so painfully with me--with my past,
my future, my dreams, my wrongs, that I could not look at it; and with a
swelling heart I moved on--all the faster because I saw they were looking
at me and talking of me, and the fair wife threw after me a wistful,
pitying glance, which I was afraid might develop itself into some offer of
food or money--a thing which I scorned and dreaded, because it involved the