260 WOLF-HUNTING. 



inspect the condition of the gallant hound after the maltreatment 

 he had met with on the previous day. A crowd of bystanders 

 had already gathered round the charette, for, besides the maimed 

 old warrior, whose head, fearfully swollen, was a mass of wounds, 

 his gaunt enemy, the she-wolf, was lashed in a conspicuous position 

 to the back part of the driver's seat, and looked even now 



" Tremendous still in death." 



The hound, of course, had his full share of admiration and 

 pity from the sympathising townsfolk, who, however, saw enough 

 of his crusty nature not to venture, beyond a few kind words, on 

 caressing him in his present sore plight. But it was the wolf 

 that excited the attention of the crowd to the highest degree. 

 On it they never seemed to be tired of gazing ; old people 

 crawled out on crutches, and women lifted their infant children 

 to take a view of the beast that all seemed to fear and hate 

 equally. Nor was it strange that so destructive a brigand, living 

 amongst them and yet doing his fell work so mysteriously that to 

 catch him in the act is a matter of the rarest occurrence, should 

 attract the curiosity of the suffering crowd, nor that, seeing him 

 now powerless for further evil, the expression of joy and gratula- 

 tion should be heard on every side. Accordingly, when the 

 charette moved off towards the kennels (if the peasants' hovels 

 appropriated to that purpose could be so called), the shout of 

 exultation that followed it brought every soul, riot already in the 

 streets, to the open windows, and roused old Caesar to such a 

 degree that he roared like thunder in response. Sejanus ducitur 

 unco, wrote the poet of a spectacle once exhibited in the streets 

 of mighty Rome ; and doubtless a similar shout might then have 

 been heard to that which now followed the fallen wolf as, with 

 a hook through its nose, its carcase was dragged triumphantly 

 through the streets of old Carhaix. On examining the wolf 

 subsequently, one of its hock-joints was found to be stiff, or 



