WILD SPORT IN BRITTANY. 117 



taire? one of the fiercest and most powerful of wild beasts. 

 So, when M. de Kergoorlas, with his love for a full choir of 

 music, cast off again his whole pack, he might fairly calculate 

 on neither running a pig to ground, nor finding another "soli- 

 taire " for that or many a day to come. But this consideration 

 did not prevent St. Prix from impressing upon him the doctrine of 

 which he was himself so practical an observer : " Better slip three 

 or four couple at a time, Kergoorlas," I heard the Louvetier 

 remark " and then throw in your relays when the first have 

 well settled on the game you mean to hunt." 



But no j the master of his hounds would be master still ; 

 fourteen couple were cheered to the drag, and in less than half- 

 an-hour three pigs were viewed in the distance, pointing downhill, 

 and galloping in frantic fright for the river below. Being in single 

 file, and following a leader, the hounds did not divide ; and as the 

 pigs plunged across the rapid stream, in helter-skelter hurry, even 

 Kergoorlas's love of sylvan music must have been more than 

 gratified by the wild harmony awakened in the glen. Nor was it 

 all mere towling, for four or five couple of hounds were dashing 



"Abreast, like horses of the sun," 



into the gurgling waters, before the last pig could shake his 

 bristly hide on the opposite bank. Crack, crack, went a 

 smooth-bore within a few yards of the rock on which I stood ; 

 and I saw that Keryfan, taking a snap shot at the hindmost 

 pig, had rolled him headlong into the scrub. Instantly, however, 

 he rose again, and hobbling back into the stream on three legs, 

 he stood there at bay up to his belly in water, confronting the 

 whole pack. " Now then for more mischief/' I said to myself; 

 and scarcely had the thought crossed my mind than the boar 

 charged, and I saw one hound at once float down the stream 

 as helpless as a lumber-log again, quick as lightning came the 

 thought that, unless instant aid were given, the best hounds 

 would be murdered or maimed wholesale in no time. Keryfan, 



