But I went on several years
after this with the deer-stalking; the true explanation of
this inconsistency would, I fear, be that I had had enough of
the one, but would never have enough of the other - one's
conscience adapts itself without much difficulty to one's
inclinations.
Between my host and myself, there was a certain amount of
rivalry; and as the head forester was his stalker, the
rivalry between our men aroused rancorous jealousy. I think
the gillies on either side would have spoilt the others'
sport, could they have done so with impunity. For two
seasons, a very big stag used occasionally to find its way
into our forest from the Black Mount, where it was also
known. Thistlethwayte had had a chance, and missed it; then
my turn came. I got a long snap-shot end on at the galloping
stag. It was an unsportsmanlike thing to do, but considering
the rivalry and other temptations I fired, and hit the beast
in the haunch. It was late in the day, and the wounded
animal escaped.
Nine days later I spied the 'big stag' again. He was nearly
in the middle of a herd of about twenty, mostly hinds, on the
look-out. They were on a large open moss at the bottom of a
corrie, whence they could see a moving object on every side
of them. A stalk where they were was out of the question. I
made up my mind to wait and watch.
Now comes the moral of my story. For hours I watched that
stag. Though three hundred yards or so away from me, I could
through my glass see almost the expression of his face. Not
once did he rise or attempt to feed, but lay restlessly
beating his head upon the ground for hour after hour. I knew
well enough what that meant. I could not hear his groans.
His plaints could not reach my ears, but they reached my
heart. The refrain varied little: 'How long shall I cry and
Thou wilt not hear?' - that was the monotonous burden of the
moans, though sometimes I fancied it changed to: 'Lord how
long shall the wicked, how long shall the wicked triumph?'
The evening came, and then, as is their habit, the deer began
to feed up wind. The wounded stag seemed loth to stir. By
degrees the last watchful hind fed quietly out of sight.
With throbbing pulse and with the instincts of a fox - or
prehistoric man, 'tis all the same - I crawled and dragged
myself through the peat bog and the pools of water. But
nearer than two hundred yards it was impossible to get; even
to raise my head or find a tussock whereon to rest the rifle
would have started any deer but this one. From the hollow I
was in, the most I could see of him was the outline of his
back and his head and neck. I put up the 200 yards sight and
killed him.
A vivid description of the body is not desirable. It was
almost fleshless, wasted away, except his wounded haunch.
That was nearly twice its normal size; about one half of it
was maggots. The stench drove us all away. This I had done,
and I had done it for my pleasure!
After that year I went no more to Scotland. I blame no one
for his pursuit of sport. But I submit that he must follow
it, if at all, with Reason's eyes shut. Happily, your true
sportsman does not violate his conscience. As a friend of
mine said to me the other day, 'Unless you give a man of that
kind something to kill, his own life is not worth having.'
This, to be sure, is all he has to think about.
CHAPTER XLVIII
FOR eight or nine years, while my sons were at school, I
lived at Rickmansworth. Unfortunately the Leweses had just
left it. Moor Park belonged to Lord Ebury, my wife's uncle,
and the beauties of its magnificent park and the amenities of
its charming house were at all times open to us, and freely
taken advantage of. During those nine years I lived the life
of a student, and wrote and published the book I have
elsewhere spoken of, the 'Creeds of the Day.'
Of the visitors of note whose acquaintance I made while I was
staying at Moor Park, by far the most illustrious was Froude.
He was too reserved a man to lavish his intimacy when taken
unawares; and if he suspected, as he might have done by my
probing, that one wanted to draw him out, he was much too
shrewd to commit himself to definite expressions of any kind
until he knew something of his interviewer. Reticence of
this kind, on the part of such a man, is both prudent and
commendable. But is not this habit of cautiousness sometimes
carried to the extent of ambiguity in his 'Short Studies on
Great Subjects'? The careful reader is left in no sort of
doubt as to Froude's own views upon Biblical criticism, as to
his theological dogmas, or his speculative opinions. But the
conviction is only reached by comparing him with himself in
different moods, by collating essay with essay, and one part
of an essay with another part of the same essay. Sometimes
we have an astute defence of doctrines worthy at least of a
temperate apologist, and a few pages further on we wonder
whether the writer was not masking his disdain for the
credulity which he now exposes and laughs at. Neither
excessive caution nor timidity are implied by his editing of
the Carlyle papers; and he may have failed - who that has
done so much has not? - in keeping his balance on the swaying
slack-rope between the judicious and the injudicious.
