WILD SPORT IN BRITTANY. 39 



with so much ability for more than twenty years at that place- 

 Will you believe it, my only injunction to unchain Hector 

 and take him within doors at night was utterly forgotten by 

 my Breton servant ? and the consequence was, not a vestige of 

 him could be found in the morning, save his fine old head, 

 which was dragged so tightly into his brass collar that it alone 

 remained to tell the tale of the night's feast. The Breton 

 confessed to hearing the fight ; and had the cowardly rascal 

 cracked a whip or lighted a match, the old dog's life would 

 have been saved to a certainty ; but while he listened from his 

 bed to the gorging and growling ' o'er carcase and limb/ and 

 ' they were too busy to think of him,' his heart failed him, 

 and he suffered the hungry brutes to hold high carnival over 

 my poor faithful dog." 



I was greatly interested by this story, as, on my previous 

 visit to Brittany and these covers, I had especially admired 

 Hector, the grandest specimen of a Wallachian mastiff I had 

 ever seen. He was at least thirty inches high ; and, single- 

 handed, no wolf would have conquered him : fettered as he 

 was, though, his big bone and powerful frame were no match 

 for the many Philistines that fell upon him in that luckless 

 night. Between M. Gourdin, the Frenchman, and the Breton 

 peasantry of his neighbourhood there was no love lost; his 

 occupation of land, and the legal redress he always resorted 

 to when his rights were infringed, created a bitter jealousy and 

 vindictive feelings akin to those, alas ! too well known in our 

 sister isle. His covers were fenced round, and no longer 

 available for the firewood hitherto obtained from them without 

 let or obstruction. Besides his master, Hector, by day, was 

 the chief guard of the whole domain ; and woe be to the 

 wretched sackcloth -clad peasant who ventured to gather a 

 bundle of sticks within the enclosed ground. The dog heard 

 him a mile off, and pinned him to a certainty, holding him by 



