WILD SPORT IN BRITTANY. 225 



we need not trouble ourselves with what, after all, may be nothing 

 more than a groundless suspicion." 



The subject then dropped, nor was anything seen of the 

 mysterious stranger until the Tuesday morning ; when, just as we 

 were finishing an early breakfast, the hounds having gone on to 

 Locrist an hour before, Marseillier rushed into our salle-a-manger, 

 and, with an ill-suppressed grin on his countenance, announced 

 M. Johnson as being in attendance at the hotel door, vttu a la 

 cavaliere, and purposing to ride on with us to the cover-side. 

 " But," said Marseiller, bursting into a fit of the wildest merri- 

 ment, "he is mounted on butcher Kenwyn's 'Lunatique/ a horse 

 that no man in Carhaix could ever sit beyond the first cross-road 

 outside the town. See him in the butcher's charrette, and you'd 

 consider him perfection but he'll plunge and kick his hind shoes 

 off rather than carry a saddle one kilometre." 



" Then I fear," said Keryfan, " we shall not have the pleasure 

 of his company as far as Locrist. But how on earth could 

 Kenwyn venture to lend such a horse to a stranger?" 



" For three francs he'd lend him his wife," replied the host. 

 " Kenwyn is not particular when money stares him in the face ; 

 besides, he says that horse has shown him more sport by kicking 

 off his riders than he ever saw at &Je,ux du Cirque''' 



I did not half relish this - last remark, and began to feel 

 somewhat indignant at the prospect of seeing my compatriot 

 thus turned into a laughing-stock, and probably maltreated, simply 

 to satisfy the greed and humour of this Breton butcher; so I 

 determined to rise at once from the table, and give Mr. Johnson 

 a timely hint as to the vicious character of the horse he had 

 hired for the day. But before I could effect my purpose the 

 conversation continued j and Keryfan remarked that " it would 

 be a sorry joke for the butcher if the rider's neck should be 

 broken by his notoriously wicked horse." 



"Not a bit of it," said Marseillier, evidently bent himself on 



