148 WOLF-HUNTING. 



are attributed to reason ; those of the other to mere brute instinct ; 

 though what the difference is my philosophy is unable to explain. 



Mr. Trelawny has remarked more than once that to record 

 efficiently the grandeur of the chase, its brilliant passages, and the 

 wild, romantic scenery to which Diana often leads her votaries, 

 every pack should have its artist himself, too, a fellow-worshipper 

 of the goddess who, as an eye-witness, should illustrate the vary- 

 ing and glorious scenes of the hunting-field. Would that Horace 

 Vernet or Landseer had been among us on this occasion ! that 

 boar and those hounds, that rock and river, St. Prix and his 

 peasants, would have been, beyond all doubt, committed to 

 canvas ; there to delight the world's eye for ages to come. 



The Louvetier would not allow a shot to be fired; indeed, 

 so surrounded was the boar by hounds swimming, scrambling, 

 and striking at him that, unless the marksman had been a 

 Kentuckian, he could scarcely have hit the one without en- 

 dangering the lives of the others. So the boar for some time 

 had the best of the fight; the ledge of rock giving him firm 

 standing-ground, and the depth of the pool compelling the 

 hounds to swim to the attack, and the men to remain helpless 

 lookers-on from the opposite bank. Ever and anon, as a gallant 

 hound attempted to land and seize him in the flank, the boar, 

 with a sudden swirl of the head, but without moving an inch 

 from his rocky pedestal, struck the intruder a blow and a gash 

 with his tusk that hurled him at once wounded and bleeding into 

 the depths of the tide. Six or seven of the hounds were seriously 

 injured in no time, and St. Prix became well-nigh frantic at the 

 spectacle. 



At length Shafto dashed into the river some twenty yards above 

 the scene of the fray; and crossing it, waist-deep as it was, he 

 quickly managed to mount the precipice from the rear, and, 

 looking down on the boar, he dropped a huge pebble exactly 

 on the brute's snout. Much to Shafto's surprise, the blow proved 



