90 WOLF-HUNTING. 



CHAPTER IX. 



THE great cover of Laz, where M. de St. Prix's hounds were 

 appointed to meet at eight o'clock that morning, being at some 

 distance from Gourin, the chasseurs at the Cheval Blanc, some 

 of them, I fear, with very heavy heads, were up and astir long 

 before daylight, and, as the wassail of the previous evening had 

 been maintained to a late hour, the snatches of sleep enjoyed 

 by the last of the revellers must have been short indeed, and 

 disturbed to the uttermost extent. The little square in front of 

 the hotel had been traversed the live-long night by peasants 

 assembling for the hunt, of whom it would be difficult to say 

 whether their tongues or iron-shod sabots made the greater 

 noise ; added to which the horses in the stable hard by, wherein 

 nothing in the shape of a stall existed, the most unruly being 

 separated by a bar only from each other, kept up a ceaseless 

 turmoil and contention during the whole night. Then followed 

 the inevitable horns ; the performers thereon standing like 

 maniacs at open windows in their shirt-sleeves, too-tooing for 

 their lives "Le point du Jour," and disturbing not only every 

 soul in Gourin, but the affrighted wolves in the neighbouring 

 forest of Conveau. 



The misery of that morning, however hopeful the prospect, 

 I shall never forget ; and even at this moment the thought of 

 it strikes a chill upon my bones. The wind was at north-east, 



