"I cannot think how men can be so barbarous," she said. "Their whole pleasure seems to consist in torturing poor animals or killing them." Young Radford laughed. "What were they made for?" he asked. "To be used by man, I think, not to be tortured by him," the young lady replied. "No torture at all," said her companion on the left. "The horse takes as much pleasure in running after the hounds as I do, and if he breaks his back, or I break my neck, it's our own fault. We have nobody to thank for it but ourselves. The very chance of killing oneself gives additional pleasure; and, when one pushes a horse at a leap, the best fun of the whole is the thought whether he will be able by any possibility to clear it or not. If it were not for hunting, and one or two other things of the sort, there would be nothing left for an English gentleman, but to go to Italy and put himself at the head of a party of banditti. That must be glorious work!" "Don't you think, Mr. Radford," asked Sir Edward Digby, "that active service in the army might offer equal excitement, and a more honourable field?" "Oh, dear no!" cried the young man. "A life of slavery compared with a life of freedom; to be drilled and commanded, and made a mere machine of, and sent about relieving guards and pickets, and doing everything that one is told like a school-boy! I would not go into the army for the world. I'm sure if I did I should shoot my commanding officer within a month!" "Then I would advise you not," answered the young baronet, "for after the shooting there would be another step to be taken which would not be quite so pleasant." "Oh, you mean the hanging," cried young Radford, laughing; "but I would take care they should never hang me; for I could shoot myself as easily as I could shoot him; and I have a great dislike to strangulation. It's one of the few sorts of death that would not please me." "Come, come, Richard!" said Sir Robert Croyland, in a nervous and displeased tone; "let us talk of some other subject. You will frighten the ladies from table before the cloth is off." "It is very odd," said young Radford, in a low voice, to Sir Edward Digby, without making any reply to the master of the house--"it is very odd, how frightened old men are at the very name of death, when at the best they can have but two or three years to live." The young officer did not reply, but turned the conversation to other things; and the wine having been liberally supplied, operated as it usually does, at the point where its use stops short of excess, in "making glad the heart of man;" and the conclusion of the dinner was much more cheerful and placable than the commencement.