22 WOLF-HUNTING. 



CHAPTER III. 



THE old town of Carhaix kept wild wassail that night : the three 

 wolves, mounted aloft on the same miserable beasts that had 

 borne them so unwillingly from the battle-field, were paraded in 

 triumph through its crowded streets ; nor did Caractacus of yore, 

 led by the conquering legions of Claudius through the city of 

 Rome, inspire the inhabitants with greater joy than was felt by 

 the primitive people of Carhaix at the sight of their fallen foe. 

 Men, women, and children turned out en masse to catch a view of 

 the gaunt brutes, the progenitors of which had kept them from 

 youth to old age in a perpetual state of alarm and terror, and, in 

 spite of every precaution, had throttled their horses, devoured 

 their sheep, and even snatched up their favourite dogs before 

 their very eyes ! No wonder the old town rang with applause at 

 the noble conquest achieved by St. Prix ; no wonder they greeted 

 him with vivas as a conqueror returning from a victory, in which 

 every soul of that city was so deeply interested ! 



The chief medical man of the town, M. Bernard, a good 

 sportsman and a most intelligent man, who had accompanied the 

 French army in its expedition against the Kabyles, and had slain 

 the lion and the panther in their native wilds, confessed to me 

 that he had often been in far greater danger among wolves than 

 in the fiercest fights with those more powerful animals. " The 

 latter/' he said, " you encounter single-handed ; but an old wolf, 



