there was something of comic in the situation.

I have said that the hunters were very unequally mounted, and so
at the end of a few miles, instead of being one body of men, like
a charging regiment, they were scattered over a considerable
space, the better riders well up to the dogs and the others
trailing away behind.

Now, I was as good a rider as any, and my horse was the best of
them all, and so you can imagine that it was not long before he
carried me to the front. And when I saw the dogs streaming over
the open, and the red-coated huntsman behind them, and only seven
or eight horsemen between us, then it was that the strangest
thing of all happened, for I, too, went mad--I, Etienne Gerard!

In a moment it came upon me, this spirit of sport, this desire to
excel, this hatred of the fox. Accursed animal, should he then
defy us? Vile robber, his hour was come!

Ah, it is a great feeling, this feeling of sport, my friends,
this desire to trample the fox under the hoofs of your horse. I
have made the fox chase with the English. I have also, as I may
tell you some day, fought the box-fight with the Bustler, of
Bristol. And I say to you that this sport is a wonderful
thing--full of interest as well as madness.

The farther we went the faster galloped my horse, and soon there
were but three men as near the dogs as I was.

All thought of fear of discovery had vanished. My brain