WILD SPORT IN BRITTANY. 23 



with his family at his back, brings fearful odds against a horse 

 and his rider. If beset at any time, as I have frequently been 

 when on a professional visit to some poor peasant's cottage in the 

 heart of the forests, don't forget that your best weapon is a box of 

 lucifer matches : these, when ignited on your saddle-bow, will 

 scatter them at every flash like dust before the wind. I can 

 remembep, some four winters ago, I was roused at midnight, in 

 bitter weather, to give immediate attendance to a peasant's wife 

 living in the forest of Huel-goed : the case was an urgent one, 

 and delay would have been fatal ; so in ten minutes I was 

 dressed, mounted, and off to the poor sufferer's aid. 



" I had scarcely ridden half a league from the town, before I 

 became aware, by the snorting of my mare, that a wolf was paying 

 rather more attention to both of us than the mare at least seemed 

 to think agreeable. One wolf, however, did not disturb me ; for, 

 as yet, but one had shown himself, springing ever and anon on 

 the hedge-bank within six feet of my head, and instantly dis- 

 appearing behind the fence as I cracked a fusee on my saddle- 

 bow. 1 spurred my mare into a quicker canter, and hoped by 

 the pace to choke off the pursuer ; but, so far from this being the 

 case, I soon found, as we sped by a broad gap in the fence, that 

 not only was he holding his own, head and head with the mare, 

 but that four other wolves were close on his quarters, joining 

 hard in the chase. In another second two of the brutes again 

 bounded on the hedge-bank ; and, growing bolder as the chase 

 grew hotter, kept stride and stride with us so closely that I could 

 absolutely smell the breath of the brutes as it tainted the night 

 air. The Brittany lanes, as you well know, are simply tunnels 

 hollowed out of the land, and flanked on either side by high, 

 broad banks, from the top of which the wolves with ravenous eyes 

 were now looking down upon us, measuring my strength and the 

 mare's probable endurance. Had she fallen or even stumbled in 

 her gait, the pack would have been on us with one bound ; but, 



