" Animated by the natural impetuosity and fire of his temper,
young Bucklaw rushed on with the careless speed of a whirlwind.
Ravenswood was scarce more moderate in his pace, for his was a mind
unwillingly roused from contemplative inactivity, but which, when once
put into motion, acquired a spirit of forcible and violent progression.
Neither was his eagerness proportioned in all cases to the motive of
impulse, but might be compared to the sped of a stone, which rushes with
like fury down the hill whether it was first put in motion by the arm of
a giant or the hand of a boy. He felt, therefore, in no ordinary degree,
the headlong impulse of the chase, a pastime so natural to youth of
all ranks, that it seems rather to be an inherent passion in our animal
nature, which levels all differences of rank and education, than an
acquired habit of rapid exercise.
The repeated bursts of the French horn, which was then always used for
the encouragement and direction of the hounds; the deep, though distant
baying of the pack; the half-heard cries of the huntsmen; the half-seen
forms which were discovered, now emerging from glens which crossed the
moor, now sweeping over its surface, now picking their way where it
was impeded by morasses; and, above all, the feeling of his own rapid
motion, animated the Master of Ravenswood, at last for the moment, above
the recollections of a more painful nature by which he was surrounded.
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