WILD SPORT IN BRITTANY. 65 



her ; so strong and so pure is the passion for the chase that, when 

 it is kindled, not even " Love is lord of all." 



For a whole hour the hounds appeared glued to their game, 

 driving hard every moment of the time, and carrying a grand head 

 whenever the hollow cover enabled them to do so ; but as yet not 

 a wolf had been viewed by one of the field, nor was it known for 

 certain whether a brace or a single wolf was in front of the 

 hounds. However, this doubt was soon dispelled. A long, 

 narrow strip of open, short heather lay exactly in the line for 

 which the chase was now pointing, and, as the cover in this 

 direction ran, like a peninsula, far out from its main area, what- 

 ever the hounds were running was bound to break at the far end 

 or turn short back, there and then, in the face of them and the 

 mounted field. 



Simultaneously, and side by side, a brace of grand old wolves 

 now broke over the heather, striding, with an easy, long gallop, 

 as evenly together as a pair of well-matched leaders in the old 

 Quicksilver mail. Had they suspected, however, that in escaping 

 from Charybdis they would only be falling into the jaws of 

 Scylla's dogs, no power would have forced them to quit the 

 stronghold of Trefranc. There, at least, if not gorged with flesh, 

 they might have baffled the stoutest hounds in Christendom for 

 many a long day ; but this was the down-wind point, and, wary 

 and suspicious as they ever are, it was simply beyond the 

 compass of their eyes, ears, or nose to discover that fifty 

 peasants or more stood at short intervals on the edge of that 

 cover, each bearing a deadly weapon expressly for their destruc- 

 tion. 



The fusilade at that moment was terrific, but scarcely less 

 deafening than the hue and cry raised by the peasants at sight 

 of their enemy. One wolf fell dead, riddled with slugs, but 

 the other, evidently badly hit, headed back, and either squatting 

 in the brushwood as the hounds flung over him, or shooting 



