If the wheel did not knock a spark out quickly; if the priming had not
been kept dry or the match not properly blown, or the cross-bow set
exactly accurate, then the care of approach would be lost. You must hold
the gun steady, too, while the slow priming ignites the charge.
An imperfect weapon--yes; but the imperfect weapon would accord with the
great oaks, the beech trees full of knot-holes, the mysterious thickets,
the tall fern, the silence and the solitude. The chase would become a
real chase: not, as now, a foregone conclusion. And there would be time
for pondering and dreaming.
Let us be always out of doors among trees and grass, and rain and wind
and sun. There the breeze comes and strikes the cheek and sets it aglow:
the gale increases and the trees creak and roar, but it is only a ruder
music. A calm follows, the sun shines in the sky, and it is the time to
sit under an oak, leaning against the bark, while the birds sing and the
air is soft and sweet. By night the stars shine, and there is no
fathoming the dark spaces between those brilliant points, nor the
thoughts that come as it were between the fixed stars and landmarks of
the mind.
Or it is the morning on the hills, when hope is as wide as the world; or
it is the evening on the shore. A red sun sinks, and the foam-tipped
waves are crested with crimson; the booming surge breaks, and the spray
flies afar, sprinkling the face watching under the pale cliffs.
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