quotes_nov2_2003.htm

..’The Abbot of Wilton kept the best pack in the country. He enclosed all the Harryngton Woods to Sturt Common. Aluric, a freeman, was dispossessed of his holding. They tried the case at Lewes. But he got no change out of William de Warrenne on the bench. William de Warrenne fined Aluric eight and fourpence for treason, and the Abbot of Wilton excommunicated him for blasphemy. Aluric was no sportsman…’

This is from “Under the Mill Dam” in Traffics and Discoveries.

The mill wheel, driven by the rushing waters from the high downs, the recorder in due order of all that happens from century to century, is recalling times past. But the wheel is now having to face the march of progress.

‘Henceforth I will give one dollar to the man on whose land Abu Hussein is found. And another dollar’ – he held up the coin – ‘to the man on whose land these dogs shall kill him. But to the man on whose land Abu Hussein shall run into a hole such as is this hole, I will give, not dollars, but a most unmeasurable beating.’

This is from “Little Foxes” in Actions and Reactions.

A local Governor in a province of the Sudan, noticing that foxes abound, has imported a pack of fox hounds from Ireland. He and his colleagues then ingeniously combine sport with sound administration of justice, to the bafflement, and eventual discomfiture, of a tiresome visiting MP.

… (he) desired more than he desired anything else at that moment, to ride, and above all, to jump on a ninety guinea bay gelding with black points and a slovenly habit of hitting his fences. He did not wish many people to be privy to the matter…

This is from “My Son’s Wife” in A Diversity of Creatures. Frankwell Midmore, a wealthy young bachelor, dwelling in a flat in Hampstead, leads a self-indulgent life among various liberal-minded but narcissistic aesthetes. But he is left a house in the country, with land of his own, and – after the initial shock – leaves his old life behind, and takes up the life of a squire, horses and all.