54 WOLF-HUNTING. 



infinite coolness, " you shall not be disappointed ; there are red- 

 leg and grey partridges en masse in this valley, and if you follow 

 me you'll burn all your powder and fill your carnassiere before 

 midday." 



St. Prix, one of the proudest of the old Breton noblesse, whose 

 mother was maid-of-honour to Marie Antoinette, and he a 

 Legitimist to the backbone, could ill brook the peasant's familiarity. 

 " Follow you," he said, deliberately ; " no j we neither require 

 your leadership nor your company. You go your ways and we'll 

 go ours." 



In no wise discomfited by this rebuff, the man, who was 

 really a good-natured fellow, said pleasantly, " Well, M. de St. 

 Prix, if you won't take a good offer, I'll quit you, certainly ; but 

 mind, if you require my service in any way, I shall be within easy 

 reach of you for the rest of the day." So saying, he lifted his hat, 

 whistled to his dog, and disappeared over the adjoining fence. 



These, as we afterwards learned, were his usual tactics, 

 depending on the labour of others to fill his bag, and "living," 

 as he was wont to say, " like the lion, on the prey hunted down 

 for him by the jackals that came into the Locrist valley." On 

 future occasions, whenever I went shooting alone into that neigh- 

 bourhood, I generally found that my first right and left shots 

 brought the lion out ; and being always well provided with 

 tobacco, I had no difficulty in securing his good services, and 

 getting him to show me the remise of every covey sprung on the 

 adjoining hills. That is the name given to the cover, whatever it 

 be, into which the game, when disturbed on feed, immediately 

 flies for concealment ; and as the whole face of the land, barring 

 a patch of oat or buckwheat stubble here and there, is one mass 

 of gorse, broom, heather, and brushwood, a single chasseur, 

 without a knowledge of the remise, and without a marker, might 

 as well bide away; he sees a covey once, and never sees it 

 again. He might far better hope to recover a blackcock in 



