WILD SPORT IN BRITTANY. 191 



which place was fixed for eight o'clock that morning. " We have 

 only four hours for rest," said he, energetically ; " and as it is 

 quite clear Kergoorlas will be unable to keep the appointment 

 with. the remnant of his pack, you and I, Shafto, must put our 

 shoulders to the wheel, and help him out of this difficulty. But 

 the piqueurs wait for orders, and we must decide at once how it 

 shall be done." 



" You are welcome to every hound of mine," responded Shafto, 

 heartily; "but I doubt if more than six couple will be found 

 available, after that last day at Gwernez." 



" Quite enough, with six couple of mine," said St. Prix, always 

 an advocate for a short pack, when boar and not wolf was the 

 game to be pursued. Louis Trefarreg was then summoned, and 

 the trusty piqueur having received the fullest instructions with 

 respect to the rendezvous and the hounds to be first uncoupled 

 on the drag, the party of chasseurs broke up, and, with the 

 exception of one, retired every man forthwith to his chamber. 



That one was M. de Kergoorlas, who, in the complication of 

 trouble that now beset him the poor braconnier lying insensible 

 from the murderous attack of his own piqueur, and seven couple 

 of his noble hounds gone nobody knew whither, and gone 

 perhaps for ever was little disposed to seek the rest which, 

 young, elastic, and robust as he was, even his frame required. 

 Lingering a few minutes near the embers of the wood fire, still 

 glowing with heat, till the last of the party had fairly quitted the 

 salle-ti-manger, he then hastily donned his hunting-cap, and, going 

 forth into the dark street, directed his steps straight for the gen- 

 darmerie and the little hospital extemporised for the braconnier's 

 use. 



Without entering into all the details of the wretched scene he 

 witnessed in this latter place, suffice it to say that all a man could 

 do he did, by sympathy and substantial aid, to soften the grief 

 of the poor stricken Breton woman who, by the side of the 



