244 WOLF-HUNTING. 



character of the hostelry, and declare that, modest as were its 

 pretensions, he had met here with better fare and less discomfort 

 than in many of the larger hotels in Brittany. 



The hour of seven had just been announced by the old- 

 fashioned clock in the salle-a-manger, and our meal so far 

 dispatched that on every side pipes were being lighted and 

 horns slung, in the immediate prospect of a start for Dualt, when 

 Louis Trefarreg, entering the apartment, brought the startling' 

 intelligence that a carrion horse, killed for the hounds on the 

 previous day, and lying within twenty yards of the kennel door, 

 had been devoured by wolves in the night, and that nothing but 

 the bones of the beast remained to tell the tale. 



" I wondered," said the piqueur, " to hear the hounds baying 

 so wildly in the dead of night, and more than once was tempted 

 to rise and find out the cause of the disturbance. Had I done 

 so, I might have saved the flesh and restored peace to the 

 kennel." 



"Aye, and the hounds would have been all the fresher for 

 their day's work," said the Louvetier, greatly excited by these 

 tidings. 



" Quite true," answered the wily piqueur ; " but still the 

 wolves, having had time to gorge the whole of the carrion, will 

 find themselves heavily weighted when the chase grows hot ; and 

 this advantage, methinks, will strike a telling balance in favour of 

 the hounds." 



" What's a half-starved Brittany pony among half-a-dozen 

 hungry wolves ? " responded the Louvetier ; " for there must have 

 been a pack of them, or they never would have ventured on so 

 daring an act of aggression during the present open weather." 



" There were only a couple ; and what's more, I'll be sworn 

 they were the same we hunted yesterday through Hengoet; at 

 all events, the tracks were precisely similar: one was an old 

 dog-wolf, and the other a bitch going on three legs." 



