46 WOLF-HUNTING. 



After our day's diversion in the covers of Ty-meur a day that 

 especially gladdened Marseillier's heart, for he it was who chiefly 

 profited by the bag both Keryfan and myself hoped St. Prix 

 would bring out his pack and draw M. Gourdin's plantations and 

 heather-brake, so short a distance from Carhaix, and a sure find 

 at all times. But dis aliter visum; and so did the Louvetier. 

 " The hounds," he said, " required more than one day's rest after 

 their unusually hard work ; and it would never do to bring a 

 slack pack into such large covers, bristling with furze, and matted 

 with heather from one end of them to the other." 



Accordingly, as an idle hand comes to no good, we, the four 

 gunners of the previous day, made immediate arrangements for a 

 day at Locrist a heather and buckwheat district, in which, if 

 Marseillier was authentic, the partridges, red-leg and grey, swarmed 

 en masse. So, at break of day, just as 



" The feathered songster chanticleer 



Had wound his bugle horn, 

 And told the early villager 

 The coming of the morn," 



Kergoorlas' coach rattled over the rough paving-stones of the 

 old town, and brought many a pretty bonnet-de-mat to the open 

 windows, as it cracked along towards the modest "place" in 

 front of the La Tour d'Auvergne. It was a cold, shivery 

 morning, the ice in the shallow puddles crackling 'neath the 

 horses' feet, and the grass and fallen leaves sparkling with hoar- 

 frost. The sun was affecting to shine ; but, in point of heat, 

 its effort was a mockery, so keen was the north wind and so raw 

 the damp exhalation arising from the foliage, withering on all 

 sides around us. About a league from Carhaix, I was in the act 

 of fastening up the last button of my great-coat, when my eye 

 caught sight of an object, the recollection of which even now 

 brings a shudder to my bones. It was the figure of a man, naked 

 to the waist ; he was leaning against a rough upright stone that 



