Chapter 5

How the Brigadier Triumphed in England

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I have told you, my friends, how I triumphed over the English at
the fox-hunt when I pursued the animal so fiercely that even the
herd of trained dogs was unable to keep up, and alone with my own
hand I put him to the sword. Perhaps I have said too much of the
matter, but there is a thrill in the triumphs of sport which even
warfare cannot give, for in warfare you share your successes with
your regiment and your army, but in sport it is you yourself
unaided who have won the laurels. It is an advantage which the
English have over us that in all classes they take great interest
in every form of sport. It may be that they are richer than we,
or it may be that they are more idle: but I was surprised when I
was a prisoner in that country to observe how widespread was this
feeling, and how much it filled the minds and the lives of the
people. A horse that will run, a cock that will fight, a dog
that will kill rats, a man that will box--they would turn away
from the Emperor in all his glory in order to look upon any of
these.

I could tell you many stories of English sport, for I saw much of
it during the time that I was the guest of Lord Rufton, after the
order for my exchange had come to England. There were months
before I could be sent back to France, and during this time I
stayed with this good Lord Rufton at his beautiful house of High
Combe, which is at the northern end of Dartmoor. He had ridden
with the police when they had pursued me from Princetown, and he
had felt toward me when I was overtaken as I would myself have
felt had I, in my own country, seen a brave and debonair soldier
without a friend to help him. In a word, he took me to his
house, clad me, fed me, and treated me as if he had been my
brother. I will say this of the English, that they were always
generous enemies, and very good people with whom to fight.

In the Peninsula the Spanish outposts would present their muskets
at ours, but the British their brandy-flasks. And of all these
generous men there was none who was the equal of this admirable
milord, who held out so warm a hand to an enemy in distress.

Ah! what thoughts of sport it brings back to me, the very name of
High Combe! I can see it now, the long, low brick house, warm
and ruddy, with white plaster pillars before the door. He was a
great sportsman, this Lord Rufton, and all who were about him
were of the same sort. But you will be pleased to hear that
there were few things in which I could not hold my own, and in
some I excelled. Behind the house was a wood in which pheasants
were reared, and it was Lord Rufton's joy to kill these birds,
which was done by sending in men to drive them out while