122 WOLF-HUNTING. 



hide, a fiercer worry was never witnessed. But they did not 

 " tear him and eat him," after the manner of English foxhounds 

 running into their game : they did not even break a particle of 

 his skin, and scarcely disfigured the thick, close jacket in which, 

 his carcase was encased : yet, for at least half-an-hour, every 

 tooth in their heads and every muscle in their bodies was. 

 concentrated on the wolfs body, biting, shaking, and dragging 

 it furiously. 



This had been an old Tartar and the scourge of the neigh- 

 bourhood for years : his four front teeth, above and below, were 

 worn down to the gums ; and his once formidable " holders," 

 broken and blunted by age and use, had been reduced to mere: 

 stumps. He had frequently been found by St. Prix's hounds ;: 

 but invariably, on breaking away, had stuck to an interminable 

 line of covers fringing the Black Mountains ; and reaching the 

 forest of Dualt, had either thrown them off by a change with 

 another wolf or run them into dark night. His head was more 

 than grey, it was almost white ; and doubtless, had his legs been 

 as lissom as on former occasions, he would not now have 

 turned short and run into the very jaws of death. The exultation 

 of the peasants over this, their old enemy, was expressed in the 

 strongest terms ; and, if St. Prix had been capable of jealousy, 

 it might easily have been aroused by the laudation which, on 

 every side, he heard bestowed on Kergoorlas's hounds : for to 

 them alone was attributed the fate that had at length overtaken 

 this ancient and shifty robber. 



In reality the hounds had been guilty of a great fault, and 

 no man knew it better than St. Prix they had changed, while 

 in full chase, from one scent to another; and, in the deep 

 forests of Brittany, where so many kinds of game abound, the 

 disposition to change is looked upon as a serious blot in the 

 character of their hounds, and the habit simply as the reckless 

 riot of an untrained pack. So, when the Breton peasants were 



