Читать книгу At the Sign of the Fox. A Romance онлайн

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“Strange, perhaps, that the killing and hunting lust should be an excuse. I often feel like begging pardon of these little hunched-up feathered things; but in spite of humanitarian principles, I somehow fear that we are growing too nice, and when the hunting fever dies out wholly, something vital is lacking in a man.”

“Hunting fever or not,” replied Stead, kicking a decaying log at his feet into dust, “I’d rather the woods were full of visible men with guns than invisible snares. Do you know that I have broken thirty or more this morning? Some day these setters of snares and I shall meet, and there will be trouble; it seems that I am destined always to war with the intangible.” Then he spread his game on the fence, and though it outranked the doctor’s spoils, he seemed to take no pleasure in it, but still looked moodily across the river.

“Ah, Rob, Rob,” said the doctor, throwing his arm affectionately about the shoulder of the taller man, who leaned heavily on the fence-top, “will your mood never change? Can you not forgive and at least play bravely at forgetting?