58 WOLF-HUNTING. 



CHAPTER VI. 



"THE wolf-hounds at Trefranc Rocks to-morrow at 8." No 

 sooner had that fixture been announced, than away sped the 

 grateful peasant, fast as his heavy sabots would carry him, to 

 communicate the glad news to the surrounding hamlets. Up hill 

 and down dale, over many a mile of rough country did he speed, 

 like Malise bearing the fiery cross when Vich-Alpine summoned 

 his mountain clans to the muster-place at Lanric Mead. Not a 

 hamlet nor a hut within many leagues of that centre but knew the 

 rendezvous, and responded to the peasant's cry of " War and 

 death to the wolf ; " not a glen that sent not its hardy tenant forth 

 to destroy the skulking robber, that, first or last, had plundered 

 each and all of them in turn, and brought want and misery to so 

 many hearths. 



Any one wishing to see the Celtic population of Lower Brit- 

 tany in its rude simplicity natural, wild, and unchanged as it is 

 by the varnish of modern civilisation should go to a wolf-hunt : 

 the peasant's blood is then up, and, both in garb and action, he 

 fairly represents the appearance and character of our ancient 

 forefathers, as described by Tacitus and other later authors. 

 Clad so far as his waist in a shaggy goat-skin mantle, his nether 

 limbs encased in the coarsest sackcloth, quaintly fashioned in the 

 form of spacious " bragues " or tight fitting to the legs, his feet 

 stockingless, but protected by huge beechen sabots well stuffed 



