Explore "The Man in Ratcatcher" by H.C. McNeile on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
The meet of the South Leicesters at Spinner's Copse generally produced a / field even larger than the normal huge crowd which followed that / well-known pack. It was near the centre of their country, and if Fate / was kind, and the fox took the direction of Hangman's Bottom, the line / was unsurpassed in any country in the world.
It was a quarter to eleven when the tall, spare man, having walked the / three-quarters of a mile from Boddington's, dismounted by the side of / the road, and thoughtfully lit a cigarette. His eyes took in every / detail of the old familiar scene; and in spite of himself, his mind went / back to the last time he had been there. He smiled a little bitterly: / he had been a fool to come, and open old wounds. This game wasn't for / him any more: his hunting days were over. If things had been different: / if only -- -- He drew back as a blood chestnut, fretting and irritable / under a pair of heavy hands, came dancing by, spattering mud in all / directions. If only -- well! he might have been riding that chestnut / instead of the heated clothes-peg on his back now. He looked with a / kind of weary cynicism at his own mount, mournfully nibbling grass: then / he laid a kindly hand on the animal's neck.