WILD SPORT IN BRITTANY. 131 



and surrounded on one side by deep woodlands, and on the other 

 by long ridges of granite rocks, the building had originally been 

 intended as a place of refuge for cattle during the heavy snow- 

 storms of winter; when the wolves pack, and are driven by hunger 

 to attack, even by daylight, the horses and dogs of peasants at 

 their very doors. 



Alexander Selkirk's abode could scarcely have surpassed this 

 spot in desolation and solitude ; but, while his company consisted 

 of a cat, dog, goats, and a talking parrot, varied by the occasional 

 visit of a tribe of savages, bent on a cannibal pic-nic who, by 

 the way, left him a valuable legacy, and did him far more service 

 than harm in the long run Shafto's court-yard was furnished 

 around with pipe-casks from Bordeaux, every one of which had 

 brought its quantum of good wine to the Hermitage, but was 

 now converted into a comfortable dog-kennel. Setters, Sussex 

 spaniels, and wire-haired Brittany wolf-hounds, numbering alto- 

 gether about fifteen couple, had their separate lodgments in these 

 barriqueS) and formed a useful and appropriate garrison for that 

 tenement. The wolves, however, in the winter season, notwith- 

 standing this fomidable force within, were continually reconnoiting 

 the premises ; and of all serenades ever listened to, the most 

 dismal is theirs, wailing their hunger in the dead of night. The 

 cat-tribe are said to make night more hideous by their cries. 

 They, we know, are mere love-squabbles, and our ears, if doomed 

 to city life, soon become familiar with, if not reconciled to, the 

 nuisance ; but there is something so mournful, so expressive of 

 distress, so appalling in the howl of a wolf under your window, 

 when all else is silent around, that he who has once heard it will 

 never forget it while life lasts. The first time St. Prix slept at the 

 Hermitage, at least half a dozen wolves howled in concert around 

 its walls the live-long night. Some fresh meat for the hounds had 

 been hung in the shambles hard by, and with this attraction for 



