152 WOLF-HUNTING. 



CHAPTER XIV. 



THE last day at Gwernez had been a hard one for the hounds. 

 So many had been wounded in the river, and so many lamed by 

 want of condition, and by the sharp granite roads over which 

 they had been compelled to travel in their long day's work, that 

 it had been found necessary to leave two couple of Shafto's lot 

 at a peasant's hut, some two leagues short of their kennel, which 

 they reached in sad plight on the following day. The piqueurs r 

 too, were many of them footsore ; and the wonder was how they 

 had endured the incessant toil and broken night rest to which 

 they had been subjected for three successive days, shod as they 

 were with iron-heeled huge sabots, weighing at least four pounds- 

 a pair, going incredible distances, 'and carousing the livelong 

 night on their return to Gourin. Nothing but the inborn love of 

 the chase, and that indomitable spirit, possessed by no nation 

 stronger than by the Bretons, that carries men on till they drop 

 rather than give in, could have sustained them under such 

 circumstances. 



Napoleon the First well knew the character of the Breton 

 peasantry, and had too often tested their courage, hardihood, and 

 physical endurance under the crudest privation ; hence the con- 

 scription, in his stormy day, fell with disproportionate weight on 

 that primitive race, and more than decimated their land. Their 

 power of bearing fatigue, however, he was wont to attribute as 



