2 o8 . WOLF-HUNTING. 



say how long the desperate fight might have lasted, if St. Prix, 

 observing one hound badly crunched, had not sprung in amongst 

 them, and with a quick blow brought the struggle to an end. 

 Caesar had more scars on his face, some of them of very recent 

 date, than his imperial namesake, a warrior all his life, could boast 

 of on his whole body ; but I was delighted to find the brave old 

 hound had not added another notch to the ugly score on the 

 present occasion. 



" Two good boars slain in fair fight, and not a shot fired ! " 

 exclaimed Kergoorlas, in a transport of delight. " Rare work for 

 one day, it must be owned." 



" But the day is not over yet," said Shafto, whose appetite for 

 hunting was positively insatiable ; " at least half-a-dozen pigs have 

 been harboured in the Castle rocks, on the Kilvern side ; and, as 

 it is but little after mid-day, we surely can't quit the cover without 

 giving them a brush." 



The peasants, especially those who had formed the deputation 

 to Carhaix, with one voice entreated St. Prix to continue the 

 chasse, denouncing the Kilvern pigs as destructive brigands, and 

 asserting the impossibility of checking their ravages without his 

 help. One of the speakers, called Tredwyn a remarkably hand- 

 some specimen of the farmer class became quite eloquent on the 

 subject, and asked, with no little excitement, if the Government 

 desired to see the peasants of that district extinguished by famine ; 

 or if the Louvetier, as their neighbour and countryman, would not 

 do his utmost to rid them of the pests that had destroyed their 

 crops, and well-nigh ruined the land. " Without hounds," added 

 he, " we can neither follow them in these vast woodlands, nor dis- 

 lodge them from that inaccessible pile of rocks, the stronghold in 

 which so many take refuge." 



The appeal was irresistible ; but St. Prix, in making the draft 

 for storming those craggy heights, positively refused at first to 

 allow any but his drag-hounds to encounter the danger; and 



