134 WOLF-HUNTING. 



still grasping Shafto's hand ; " and to-day you ought to have been 

 with us, as we have not only killed the great boar of Laz, but the 

 old wolf that led you so many dances from Scaer to Dualt, and 

 kept your hounds without their blood for so many days." 



" Bravo ! that is a great triumph ; but Keryfan tells me you 

 were obliged to borrow a Vendean pack to achieve it." 



" Quite true/' shouted Kergoorlas : " though, to speak fairly,, 

 the old brute had not a tooth left, and might have been galloped 

 to death by a donkey. However, his skin goes to the Hermitage ; 

 for all agree he was an old friend of yours, 1 Shafto ; and that you 

 have a prescriptive right to that memento." 



" I should have liked to be in at his death, I must confess," 

 said Shafto, turning to me, and parrying the taunt pleasantly 

 levelled at his hounds ; " but I could not control the winds and 

 the sea. Good sport though I have seen with my old friend 

 Reginald James in the Norway waters, I would not again undergo- 

 the misery of that voyage from Christiansand to Bordeaux for 

 the freehold of Torjedahl. Fancy, one-and-twenty days in a 

 Norwegian timber-brig, with nothing but a ' hurricane house ? 

 abaft the mainmast to live in, for captain, crew, and passengers ;. 

 no 'tween decks, all occupied by timber ; and the wind blowing 

 as if all the bags of yolus had been ripped at once. The ship 

 scudding wildly, with two men at the helm, under close-reefed 

 topsails and reefed foresail ! It's a lesson, believe me, I shall 

 never forget. The only moment of merriment I enjoyed through- 

 out the voyage was to hear a Devonshire man declare solemnly 

 it was ' They qua'ter-noxes a-blow'ng/ although it was a good 

 month after the usual period of the equinoctial gales." 



That night was one of wassail at the Cheval Blanc ; and the 

 ceremony of drinking healths and toasts and singing Breton 

 songs, suggested by the return of Shafto and the unusual success 

 of the day, was prolonged to an hour better suited to the habits 

 of confirmed Bacchanals than those of a party met for the 



