WILD SPORT IN BRITTANY. 63 



will be a mystery to me so long as I live ! Some angel must 

 have guarded him tenderly. 



Bang, bang, bang ! from the hill above, and the shrieking 

 sound of slugs hurtling through the air but a few yards above our 

 heads roused me from my momentary abstraction : then, instantly, 

 the shout from many brazen throats of "yr louarn, yr louarn !" 

 a fox, a fox resounded on our ears. The hounds heard it at 

 once, and, throwing up their heads, the cry suddenly ceased. St. 

 Prix turned pale with rage, and dashing into the forest, rode 

 straight for the quarter whence the wild yells were continued. 

 No whip in the world, not even Jack Goddard in the golden age 

 of the Heythrop, could have got at his hounds and stopped the 

 mischief more promptly. As he crashed through the bushes, in 

 the very nick of time, and headed the leading hounds, one short 

 blast of his horn gathered the six couple around him like a stroke 

 of magic ; and, before they could feel for the scent on which the 

 peasants were hallooing them, he lifted them back at a hand 

 canter, and in a few seconds recovered the line from which they 

 had been so vexatiously diverted. Had they settled on the fox, 

 the wolves, in all probability, would have slipped away and our 

 sport been marred for the day. The peasants, too, would have 

 been greatly annoyed at the result of their own riotous behaviour. 

 A wolf with a good start in his favour, and a distant strong point, 

 like the Forest of Dualt, to gain, is as bad to catch as the wildest 

 fox that ever broke from a Dartmoor tor. However, all's well 

 that ends well ; every hound was quickly again at work and the 

 cover cracking with the music. St. Prix's horn, too, was again, 

 ever and anon, lifted spasmodically to his cheek j but it was only 

 drag, and the Louvetier still gave no signal. 



The hounds, with their mouths away from us, were now 

 pointing for a precipitous rocky ravine, matted with thorny 

 brushwood and the wild clematis, through which it was all but 

 impossible on horseback to force one's way. Twice I was 



