82 WOLF-HUNTING. 



the latter may be managed by a man long accustomed to the 

 exercise of the other. He may not be a hunter, skilled in all the 

 shifts of a pig or deer when brought to bay, and he may be 

 profoundly ignorant of the vital spot at which his thrust should 

 be aimed ; but instruct him on these points, and he will deal his 

 blow with a quickness and precision unknown by the less adroit 

 swordsmen of this country. St. Prix's confidence in his couteau 

 made my flesh creep : no matter where the boar was at bay, 

 whether with his back bearing against a huge granite rock, or im- 

 mersed up to his belly in the bed of a brawling brook, the hounds 

 assailing him in every quarter, and the glare of his wicked eyes 

 infuriated with fire, St. Prix never hesitated a moment in getting 

 at him and plunging his weapon, with the rapidity and precision 

 of a matador, hilt-deep into some vital part a service of infinite 

 danger, no doubt ; for, if the point of his couteau were to come 

 into contact with a bone, and death were not almost the instant 

 result of his blow, the penalty of his failure would be a charge to 

 a certainty, and probably a serious gash or two from the animal's 

 tusks. So, a firm hand, eye and nerve, and, above all, skill in 

 the use of his weapon, are essential in the encounter; or the 

 death-wound will not be given with the exact nicety requisite at 

 such a time. 



After the departure of the Kilvern peasants from Carhaix, the 

 afternoon of that day was pleasantly passed in a visit to the 

 hounds, quartered as they were in a peasant's cottage hard by 

 the town. Not an article of the scanty furniture had been 

 removed for the occasion ; but there, in the chimney-nook still 

 strewed with its wood-embers, under the table and on the table, 

 and in a hollow recess of the wall, hitherto claiming the dignity of 

 the peasant's own bed, lay the swarthy hounds, apparently as 

 comfortably kennelled after their hard work as her Majesty's 

 staghounds might be on their luxurious benches at Ascot Heath. 

 Grievously marked about the head and neck were several of 



