Excerpt from Russia in the 'Eighties, ' Sport and Politics

From stars, planets and constellations we passed to the words for night and morning, for day, dawn and darkness, then to things of the country - field and hedgerow, grass and trees - and so by easy transition to the birds and beasts of moorland, marsh and forest. My companion's feelings kindled to enthusiasm as he spoke of the chase, for which hitherto in his busy life he had found scant leisure but he felt rather than knew that this would no longer be the case, for he had not yet realised that the whole Obloquy for the Berlin Treaty would, most unjustly, be cast upon him, that, in fact, his career as a statesman was even now ended.

This two hours' walk and talk under the stars drew us nearer together than all our previous intercourse, it was my first Russian lesson and, looking back, it seems to form a fitting 'prelude to the ensuing years during which, in his enforced retirement, shooting was to be his one great solace, I his inseparable companion.

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