This gentleman, whom I
shall call Pierpoint, was a high-spirited, generous young man as I have
ever known. When I say that he was a sportsman, that at one season of
the year he did little else than pursue his darling amusement of fox-
hunting, for which indeed he had almost a maniacal passion--saying
this, I shall already have prejudged him in the opinions of many, who
fancy all such persons the slaves of corporeal enjoyments. But, with
submission, the truth lies the other way. According to my experience,
people of these habits have their bodies more than usually under their
command, as being subdued by severe exercise; and their minds, neither
better nor worse on an average than those of their neighbors, are more
available from being so much more rarely clogged by morbid habits in
that uneasy yoke-fellow of the intellectual part--the body. He at all
events was a man to justify in his own person this way of thinking; for
he was a man not only of sound, but even of bold and energetic
intellect, and in all moral respects one whom any man might feel proud
to call his friend. This young man, Pierpoint, without delay obeyed the
summons; and on being made acquainted with what had already passed, the
first step he took was to call upon Barratt, and without further
question than what might ascertain his identity, he proceeded to
inflict upon him a severe horsewhipping.
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