WILD SPORT IN BRITTANY. 155 



On one occasion a wolf-gin was very nearly the cause of my 

 getting into a serious scrape with the peasants of Trefranc. I 

 was out woodcock shooting in that district ; and, being in the act 

 of jumping from the top of a high bank into a piece of sedgy 

 ground, my trusty Breton servant, who had mounted the bank at 

 the same moment, called my instant attention to a huge wolf-gin 

 which was lying with open jaws very close to the spot on which I 

 must have alighted, had I made my intended jump. 



" That's a dangerous trap for man or dog/' I said to Noel, 

 with more irritation than gratitude at my narrow escape. " Pull 

 it up, and cast it into yonder bog." 



He immediately proceeded to obey orders ; but, as there was 

 some difficulty in extracting the iron pegs with which the gin was 

 moored to the ground, I passed on with the spaniels, and was not 

 aware that, instead of pitching it into the bog, he had consigned 

 it to my carnassiere a circumstance that afterwards saved him 

 from serious discomfiture. 



We had proceeded some half-a-league down the valley ; he on 

 one side, for the purpose of marking, and I .on the other drawing 

 a hanging cover, when an uproar in my rear apprised me that at 

 least half-a-dozen peasants, armed with pitch-forks and clubs, were 

 coming up in hot haste, and that I was the object of their pursuit. 

 As they approached within twenty yards of me, I wheeled round 

 and faced them a movement that had the immediate effect of 

 bringing the whole party to a halt ; and before I could inquire 

 what their business was, a simultaneous and angry shout informed 

 me I had stolen their wolf-trap, and bid me restore it there and 

 then. I pointed to Noel, and told them he knew more about the 

 trap than I did, and would show them what he had done with it if 

 they inquired of him. 



This answer, and probably the half-cocked double gun I held 

 in my right hand, turned their attention at once upon Noel, who, 

 by-the-bye, had seen the whole affair, and even heard the conversa- 



