But I never once saw him shot, though almost as many
gunners pursue him as there are pheasants in the land. This alone
shows how shy the gunners are; and when once I saw the trail of a
fox-hunt from the same coign of vantage without seeing the fox, I
felt that I had almost indecently come upon the horse and hounds,
and that the pink coats and the flowery spread of the dappled
dogs over the field were mine by a kind of sneak as base as
killing a fox to save my hens.
IX
Equally with the foxes and the pheasants, the royalties and
nobilities abound in English novels, which really form the chief
means of our acquaintance with English life; but the chances that
reveal them to the average unintroduced, unpresented American are
rarer. By these chances, I heard, out of the whole peerage, but
one lord so addressed in public, and that was on a railroad
platform where a porter was reassuring him about his luggage.
Similarly, I once saw a lady of quality, a tall and girlish she,
who stood beside her husband, absently rubbing with her glove the
window of her motor, and whom but for the kind interest of our
cabman we might never have known for a duchess.
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