The Duke was angry because
Lord Chiltern had been violent;--and Lord Chiltern had been violent
because Mr. Fothergill's conduct had been, to his thinking, not only
sacrilegious, but one continued course of wilful sacrilege. It may be
said of Lord Chiltern that in his eagerness as a master of hounds he
had almost abandoned his love of riding. To kill a certain number of
foxes in the year, after the legitimate fashion, had become to him
the one great study of life;--and he did it with an energy equal to
that which the Duke devoted to decimal coinage. His huntsman was
always well mounted, with two horses; but Lord Chiltern would give
up his own to the man and take charge of a weary animal as a common
groom when he found that he might thus further the object of the
day's sport. He worked as men work only at pleasure. He never missed
a day, even when cub-hunting required that he should leave his bed at
3 A.M. He was constant at his kennel. He was always thinking about
it. He devoted his life to the Brake Hounds. And it was too much for
him that such a one as Mr.
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